Rat Hole Gallery is pleased to present “Roni Horn,” an exhibition of the artist’s sculptures and drawings on view from Tuesday, September 7 until Sunday, December 5. On display are four sculptures from Horn’s White Dickinson series and three drawings, including one from her latest series Else. The exhibition marks Horn’s second exhibition at Rat Hole Gallery following “This is Me, This is You” in 2008 and is the first time for her sculptural and drawing works to be shown in Japan. 

The exhibition follows a number of Horn’s recent major exhibitions around the globe. A solo exhibition of her work was recently held at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (“Well and Truly” from April 24-July 4, 2010) and between February 2009 and June 2010, an internationally acclaimed survey of the artist’s work “Roni Horn aka Roni Horn” opened at four major institutions- the Tate Museum in London, the Collection Lambert in Avignon, the Whitney Museum in New York, and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston.

Horn’s White Dickinson series on display in this exhibition expresses the artist’s deep engagement with language and literature. Several of her works up to date have incorporated the words of well-known writers and poets, in this case the famous American nineteenth century poet Emily Dickinson. Although Emily Dickinson rarely left the house and led a reclusive life, she wrote thousands of letters to friends and acquaintances throughout her lifetime. Horn, who has long been fascinated by the poet, takes text from these celebrated letters and transforms them into solid cast white plastic letters, which are then embedded into rectangular aluminum rods. In turning fragments of Dickinson’s writing into solid objects, Horn explores how physical form can be given to language and at the same time, how language can construct alternate worlds which transport us from the physical reality that we live in. The minimal sculptures emphasize the structure of the words just as much as their meaning by allowing the viewer to simultaneously see and read one side of the object as an abstract pattern and the other as words. “The hybridizing of looking and reading, the experience that binds these two acts is another kind of pairing...with you as the third element.” Horn’s use of "pairing" appears throughout her graphic, photographic as well as sculptural work, designed to invoke the viewer's experience of engaged memory.
 
The exhibition also features three drawings by the artist. Ranging in size and date- from 1985 when Horn first started creating her pigment drawings to her new work Else- these drawings continue Horn’s exploration of identity through pairing, doubling, and repetition. Her artistic process involves creating what she refers to as “plates”- two drawings of similar forms- which are then cut up and meticulously pasted back together in a new form and identity. Like the White Dickinson series, these complex drawings are created by the intersection of language and form, providing the viewer with a visual, emotional and intellectual experience.