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St-Georges

Roni Horn Selected Drawings 1984 - 2012

Roni Horn Selected Drawings 1984 - 2012
Selected works Installation views

Xavier Hufkens is pleased to announce the first survey exhibition dedicated solely to the pigment drawings of New York-based artist Roni Horn (b. 1955, New York). It is the artist’s fifth exhibition with the gallery and the works range from early pieces to new, intricate large-scale drawings, two of which have been especially created for the exhibition. These works move beyond the limitations of their medium and instead explore the materiality of colour and the sculptural potential of drawing.

Horn’s first drawings, which date to the mid 1980s, were made using pure pigment and feature groupings of uneven shapes. Whether semi-conical, semi-pyramidal, or semi-rectangular, the objects waver between easily identifiable geometric forms and abstract volumes. Each shape is densely filled with powdered pigment in gem-like shades of deep red, bright yellow and brilliant green. The pigment is applied to the paper in thick layers, mixed with small amounts of turpentine, and varnish is finally added, a little at a time. It is a laborious process that lends physicality and depth to the two-dimensional works.

An important feature of Horn’s work is her sculptural and photographic explorations into the implications of repetition and doubling. Early drawings such as Must 21 (1985) also represent a two-dimensional investigation into multiplicity, perception and memory. Must 21 depicts a group of dark grey, tapered cylindrical shapes flecked with green, red and white pigments. At first glance, they seem similar, but it becomes apparent that the shapes are not presented in a progressive or logical sequence. Instead, they contain a built-in repetition with minor variations, such as the multi-coloured traces of pigment, which require the viewer to commit their time and attention to unravelling the subtle differences.

Horn’s more recent drawings display a significant increase in scale and complexity. Each work is composed of separate drawings, or ‘plates’. Horn first cuts these plates and then stitches elements from them together, creating entirely new forms through continuous cutting and pasting. Light pencil marks are dispersed throughout the drawings, indicating the joins of different plates and recording names or random pairings of words. These annotations mark time, like a metronome, as Horn carries out her exploration of the drawing’s expansive surface. In her essay in Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, Briony Fer described Horn’s work as ‘complete with missing parts’, capturing ‘the sense of a total object that is all absorbing yet at the same time intractable in some way and, therefore, always incomplete. This refusal to deliver everything easily or quickly forces us to slow down and reflect: to hold on to that tenuous hold.’

If you were to ask me what I do, I would say I draw – this is the primary activity – and that all my work has this in common regardless of idiom or material.

Roni Horn in a letter to Paulo Herkenhoff, 2003

Roni Horn’s most recent solo exhibitions include Photographien/Photographic Works at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany (2011) and Well and Truly at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010). In November 2009, Horn’s comprehensive survey exhibition, Roni Horn aka Roni Horn opened at Tate Modern and travelled to Collection Lambert in Avignon, France (2009). Other important exhibitions include those at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2009) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2010). Horn’s works are featured in numerous major international institutions and collections including the Guggenheim Museum (NY), MOMA (NY), the Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.

Related exhibitions

Selected works

  • Else 11, 2010

  • Through 6, 2007

  • Such 3, 2012

  • Such 4, 2012

  • Too V, 2000

  • 1989 B, 1989

  • Was II, 1991

  • The XXXVII, 1989

  • Through 5, 2007

  • Next 9, 2004

  • The XXVII, 1988

  • The XL, 1989

  • The IX, 1988

  • Double JJ', 1987

  • Untitled (Hamilton)

  • Hamilton Red, 1984

  • Untitled (Hamilton), 1984

  • Hamilton Red, 1984

  • Untitled (Hamilton)

  • Hamilton Red, 1984

  • Untitled (Hamilton)

  • Hamilton Red, 1984

  • Brooklyn Red, 1985

  • Brooklyn Red, 1985

  • Brooklyn Misc, 1985

  • Must 49, 1985

  • Untitled (Hamilton), 1985

  • Untitled, 1986

  • This 12

  • Brooklyn White, 1986

  • Brooklyn White, 1986

  • Brooklyn White, 1988

  • Brooklyn White, 1986

  • Untitled, 1984-1985

  • Brooklyn Grey, 1985

  • Brooklyn Grey, 1985

  • Brooklyn Gray, 1984/1985

  • Untitled, 1986

  • Untitled (Hamilton), 1984

  • Untitled (Hamilton)

  • Untitled

  • The XXXIX, 1989

  • Just XIV, 1992

  • That VI (Twinning 1), 1993

  • That I, 1993

  • Untitled

Related artworks

    Roni Horn

    Else 11, 2010

    pigment and varnish on paper
    234.3 x 243.8 cm, 92 1/4 x 96 in.

    Roni Horn

    Through 6, 2007

    pigment and varnish on paper
    251.5 x 241.3 cm, 99 x 95 in.

    Roni Horn

    Such 3, 2012

    pigment and varnish on paper
    170.2 x 168.9 cm, 67 x 66 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Such 4, 2012

    pigment and varnish on paper
    208.3 x 215.9 cm, 82 x 85 in.

    Roni Horn

    Too V, 2000

    pigment and varnish on paper
    108.5 x 146.6 cm, 42 3/4 x 57 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    1989 B, 1989

    pigment and varnish on paper
    40.6 x 56.5 cm, 16 x 22 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Was II, 1991

    powdered pigment, graphite, charcoal, coloured pencil and varnish on paper
    57 x 59.7 cm, 22 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    The XXXVII, 1989

    pigment and varnish on paper
    29.5 x 49.8 cm, 11 5/8 x 19 5/8 in.

    Roni Horn

    Through 5, 2007

    pigment and varnish on paper
    269.2 x 228.6 cm, 106 x 90 in.

    Roni Horn

    Next 9, 2004

    red pigments and on paper with varnish
    85.1 x 65.4 cm, 33 1/2 x 25 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    The XXVII, 1988

    pigment and varnish on paper
    61.6 x 69.2 cm, 24 1/4 x 27 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    The XL, 1989

    pigment and varnish on paper
    57 x 62 cm, 22 1/2 x 24 3/8 in.

    Roni Horn

    The IX, 1988

    powdered pigment, graphite, charcoal, coloured pencil and varnish on paper
    57.5 x 77.5 cm, 22 5/8 x 30 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Double JJ', 1987

    pigment and varnish on paper
    39.3 x 36.8 cm, 15 1/2 x 14 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton)

    red pigment and varnish on paper
    54 x 38.1 cm, 21 1/4 x 15 in.

    Roni Horn

    Hamilton Red, 1984

    pigment and varnish on paper
    25.4 x 33.0 cm, 10 x 13 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton), 1984

    pigment and varnish on paper
    25.4 x 30.5 cm, 10 x 12 in.

    Roni Horn

    Hamilton Red, 1984

    pigment and varnish on paper
    29.2 x 37.5 cm, 11 1/2 x 14 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton)

    pigment and varnish on paper
    33.7 x 47.6 cm, 13 1/4 x 18 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Hamilton Red, 1984

    pigment and varnish on paper
    27.9 x 36.8 cm, 11 x 14 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton)

    pigment and varnish on paper
    26 x 24.1 cm, 10 1/4 x 9 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Hamilton Red, 1984

    pigment and varnish on paper
    23.5 x 26 cm, 9 1/4 x 10 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn Red, 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    16.3 x 13.7 cm, 6 3/8 x 5 3/8 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn Red, 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    16.1 x 20.6 cm, 6 3/8 x 8 1/8 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn Misc, 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    29.2 x 29.8 cm, 11 1/2 x 11 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Must 49, 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    22.9 x 36.8 cm, 9 x 14 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton), 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    29.5 x 39.4 cm, 11 5/8 x 15 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled, 1986

    pigment and varnish on paper
    36.8 x 51.4 cm, 14 1/2 x 20 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    This 12

    pigment and Varnish on paper
    36.2 x 50.2 cm, 14 1/4 x 19 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn White, 1986

    pigment and varnish on paper
    33 x 44.5 cm, 13 x 17 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn White, 1986

    pigment and varnish on paper
    34.9 x 49.5 cm, 13 3/4 x 19 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn White, 1988

    pigment and varnish on paper
    36.8 x 53.3 cm, 14 1/2 x 21 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn White, 1986

    pigment and varnish on paper
    38.1 x 38.1 cm, 15 x 15 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled, 1984-1985

    pastel, pigment and varnish on paper
    17 x 24.4 cm, 6 3/4 x 9 5/8 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn Grey, 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    16.1 x 12 cm, 6 3/8 x 4 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn Grey, 1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    35.9 x 36.2 cm, 14 1/8 x 14 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Brooklyn Gray, 1984/1985

    pigment and varnish on paper
    20 x 20.4 cm, 7 7/8 x 8 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled, 1986

    blue pigments on paper with varnish
    34.3 x 33.7 cm, 13 1/2 x 13 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton), 1984

    pigment and varnish on paper
    37.5 x 44.5 cm, 14 3/4 x 17 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled (Hamilton)

    pigment and varnish on paper
    23.5 x 22.2 cm, 9 1/4 x 8 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled

    pigment and varnish on paper
    33.9 x 48.8 cm, 13 3/8 x 19 1/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    The XXXIX, 1989

    pigment and varnish on paper
    54.6 x 54.6 cm, 21 1/2 x 21 1/2 in.

    Roni Horn

    Just XIV, 1992

    pencil, pigment and varnish on paper
    84 x 159.5 cm, 33 1/8 x 62 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    That VI (Twinning 1), 1993

    pigment on paper with varnish
    176.2 x 207 x 7 cm, 69 3/8 x 81 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.

    Roni Horn

    That I, 1993

    pigment and varnish on paper
    106.7 x 215.9 cm, 42 x 85 in.

    Roni Horn

    Untitled

    pigment and varnish on paper
    78.8 x 91.4 cm, 31 x 36 in.

Installation views