Rebecca Horn Exhibits in the Martin-Gropius-Bau

Saturday, 14 October 2006 12:34

Berlin - A major Rebecca Horn exhibition is being staged in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in autumn 2006.  It will be the first comprehensive exhibition since 1994 of the works of this internationally renowned artist, who lives in Berlin.  Installations, drawings, sculptures and films from 1964 to 2006 will be present in a very personal way by the artist in twenty rooms at the ground floor of the Martin-Gropius-Bau.  In the central hall Rebecca Horn show a new installation called “The universe in a pearl”.

Rebecca Horn is a leading protagonist of a development that began on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1960s and demonstrated the absurdity of traditional concepts of art.

The occasionally contrary forms and concepts which emerged at that time in New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan and Düsseldorf, completely revolutionizing the prevailing system of strategies for expression and design, were a source of inspiration to Rebecca Horn.  During a tedious phase of her convalescence in the late 1960s, she began exploring new artistic opportunities and developed a genuine form language for her existentially founded ideas.  However, it was far from clear at the outset just how grandiose her burgeoning oeuvre would become.

Be that as it may, there has long been an appreciation of the latent connections between her works and the powerful Performance, Arte Povera, Fluxus and Conceptual Art movements.  Hence, in the European context, Rebecca Horn’s name can be mentioned in the same breath as those of Joseph Beuys, Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz and, in the American context, of Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci.

The exhibition brings together a wide-ranging complex of early drawings produced in conjunction with her performances between 1970 and 1975.  Along with the relevant objects which other actors and occasionally she, too, used at that time, the drawings reveal the intense physical and mental endeavors that went into the aesthetic form of the performances.  A selection of diagrammatic representations also illustrates the well thought-out strategy the artist pursued in placing the machines and equipment, which played an important part in her first major film Eintänzer (1978), in the context of exhibitions, where they took on a life of their own.  Moreover, it appears sensible to integrate individual drawing and painting machines into the project as well as a number of other installations that are of significance in this context.

‘Drawing has always been supremely important to me’, Rebecca Horn said in an interview a few years ago.  That may come as a surprise, given that her fame as an artist stems primarily from the fact that her oeuvre rests on very different media.  Since the early 1970s she has produced performances, objects, installations, videos and films, gaining rapid international recognition in the process.  Photos, collages, prints and drawings came later, but attracted less attention.

The exhibition will be held until 15 January 2007 on the ground floor and in the atrium of the Martin-Gropius-Bau.  Previously staged in London and Lisbon, the exhibition on show in Berlin will be on a much larger scale.  The catalogue will also be redesigned, complemented and extended. Visit : www.gropiusbau.de