After brief studies in Philosophy and Economics, Rebecca Horn entered the Hochschule für Bildende Künste ("fine arts academy") of Hamburg in 1963. From 1967 onwards, she started to create major sculptures in polyester resin. Following lung poisoning caused by this resin, she was confronted with the medical world and its apparatuses: “All of my early performances drew on this experience.” In reaction to the forced isolation of convalescence, the artist devised artworks that foster communication with others, particularly through the body, which naturally became the focus of the path towards recovery. In 1971, she pursued her training at the Saint Martins School of Art in London. In 1974, she taught at the University of San Diego and, from 1989, at the Berlin University of the Arts. Überströmer ("overflowing blood machine", 1970) reflects circumstantial anatomical concerns; the installation El Rio de la Luna ("the river of the moon", 1992) shows lead veins pumping with mercury. In the late 1960s, an abundant series of body sculptures related to performances began: extensions of the body made of fabric. With Arms Extensions (1968) the body is constrained by disabling prostheses. Cornucopia, seance for two breasts connects the breasts to the mouth, suggesting a form of self-breastfeeding. In the same spirit, the artist devised the famous filmed performance Einhorn ("unicorn", 1971), in which the graceful gait of the elongated silhouette of a female student is surmounted by a tall white horn, supported by a kind of corset made of bandages. Other articulated artworks strive to create a second protective layer of skin, or even a cocoon that doubles the corporeal prison, highlighting isolation and separation from the object of desire, as in Weißer Körperfächer ("white-body-fan", 1972). Horn’s machines constitute a logical follow-up to the body extensions in her work. Her kinetic sculptures that are deployed in space in the form of installations break away from the body in order to mime its movements and human passions. Their most striking feature is not their power but the poetry of their mechanism, whose fascinating precision contrasts with the strange malfunctioning of their frenetic movement. The performer also created a number of films, medium and feature-length films, which use her artworks as elements or protagonists, involving a perfect continuity with her installations. She has received a multitude of awards for her work, notably the Document-Preis (1986), the Carnegie Prize (1988), and the Barnett and Annalee Newman Award (New York, 2004). She lives and works in Paris and Berlin.
Raphaël CUIR
