Roni Horn Ordre des livres (chronologique)

An evocative chronicle of the power of solitude in the natural world, this work reflects the enduring influence of Iceland on contemporary artist Roni Horn. First visiting the island in 1975 at age nineteen, Horn’s connection to its treeless expanse has shaped her creative journey. Through poetic reflections, vignettes, and illustrated essays, the narrative distills her lifelong experiences with Iceland's natural environment, exploring the profound impact of remote, elemental places on the self. This meditation on presence conveys a spectrum of experiences, from the deeply profound to the joyful and absurd. Horn captures the essence of Iceland through vivid depictions of its ever-changing weather, aggressive birds, imposing glaciers, and the omnipresence of water. These elements reveal her deep-seated need for Iceland, a place integral to her creative and spiritual life. The dramatic landscape prompts reflections on self-sufficiency and isolation, invoking cultural figures such as El Greco, Emily Dickinson, and Rachel Carson. While celebrating nature’s sublime energy, Horn also addresses themes of consumption, destruction, and loss as industrial encroachment threatens Iceland's wilderness. Filled with insights on a secluded region that fosters discovery, this work illuminates a wild and beautiful Iceland that remains vital and ever-evolving.

"Everyone has a story about the weather. This may be the single thing each of us holds in common. And though the weather varies greatly from here to there, it is, ultimately, one weather that we share. Small talk everywhere has occasioned the popular distribution of the weather. Some say talking about the weather is talking about oneself. And with each passing day, the weather increasingly becomes ours, if not us. "Weather Reports You" is one beginning of a collective self-portrait." Over the past two years Roni Horn has been working with a small team in the south west of Iceland gathering personal testimonies from people talking about the weather. These "weather reports" include descriptions, reflections, memories and stories based on experiences of the weather that range from the matter-of-fact to the marvelous. The different nuances and usages of language suggest that the weather is not just a matter of meteorological conditions but is, in Horn's words, "a metaphor for the physical, metaphysical, political, social and moral energy of a person and a place."

Inspired by the philosopher and writer Helene Cixous, which whom the photographer and artist Roni Horn has collaborated before, "Index Cixous" questions the nature of language in its most fundamental sense and proposes a version--one without words, but which can be read as any other. Both Horn and Cixous are concerned with communication wrought out of material space. Cixous writes about women's language arising from the female body, and she argues for a new language, one not in thrall to patriarchy but that acknowledges the life-giving force and history of the feminine.

Le travail de Roni Horn va des gros plans colorés de visages jeunes frappants à des études sombres des surfaces de la Tamise, en passant par ses abstractions ludiques et ses installations remplies de jeux de mots inspirés par la théoricienne féministe française Hélène Cixous. Rings of Lispector s'inspire à son tour de l'œuvre de l'un des auteurs préférés de Cixous, la écrivaine brésilienne Clarice Lispector. Horn a recouvert un sol de carreaux en caoutchouc interconnectés et de passages d'Agua Viva de Lispector, disposés en cercles ondulés. L'œuvre réfléchit à l'espace architectural et à la force poétique, encourageant les spectateurs à ressentir physiquement le caoutchouc sous leurs pieds et à voir les mots d'en haut. Cet acte désorientant de localisation, caractéristique de l'exploration par Horn des possibilités du langage en tant que forme sculpturale, aborde les émotions intérieures avec l'idée de paysage.

This is Me, This is You is Roni Horn's handbook on identity. It is also a book with no end. Peruse the 48 images taken with a point-and-shoot camera and, as you arrive at the last image, flip the book over and begin again. Each image reappears, in a version taken just seconds later. A single and singular portrait of one young girl taken over a two-year period, This is Me, This is You evokes a multitude of identities, images and icons, of everything that can be subtly revealed in the process of visiting and revisiting a single person through a camera, through time.