Roni Horn

Private Collection, Europe
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, 13 May 2009, Lot 331
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

ARTnews, December 1993, Vol. 92, no. 12, p. 128, illustration of another example
"Art is a Thing with Ideas," St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 23, 1995, illustration of another example
Exhibition Catalogue, Saint Louis Art Museum, Currents 61: Roni Horn,  1995, illustration of another example (on the cover)
The Sciences, November/December 1997, p. 27, illustration of another example

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the catalogue illustration fails to fully convey the three dimensionality of the elements, apparent in the original. Condition: This work is in very old condition. On close inspection there are there are a few isolated fine nicks, wear and surface imperfections around the edges of the elements.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

When Dickinson Shut her Eyes is part of Roni Horns larger Key and Cue series, which is notably the only sculptural body of work that the artist specifically created for the domestic setting. The artist takes as her inspiration for this series the very authors that one would expect to populate the bookshelves of a well-read home; in the present work turning to the exquisitely stylised Emily Dickinson poem 'A Wind that Rose'. Casting the lines of the poem in black plastic on slender aluminium rods, Horn transmutes the two-dimensional linguistic form in to that of a three-dimensional sculpture, both adding to and challenging the way in which the poem is to be approached and understood.

 As durable industrial materials, presented to the viewer within a three-dimensional architectural space, Horn visually disrupts and obfuscates the flow of the literary source, each line reduced to a statement rather than an element within a poetic whole. By relocating words in a physical space, the artist demands that the viewer go through a process of performative reassessment; not only of the physical existence of the words themselves, but also in relation to the mutable corporeal and conceptual weight of the viewer in concert with the sculpture within space. The materiality of the words is challenged by the enigmatic quality of their meaning, yet this non-traditional artistic medium of wordage also allows for open-ended and democratic access to the work. It is through its linguistic door of recognition that Horn welcomes the viewer to experience and interact with her work.

Horn has described the power of Emily Dickinson's poems as lying in their ability to take hold of the reader with their initial reading, through a preconscious connection; her singularly modern stylistic placement of nouns, verbs and adjectives hooking the reader through a vague but leading sense of recognition. Similarly, by making language palpable, in the Key and Cue series Horn appeals to the viewers on a plane equally split between the physical and the conceptual, prompting the viewer to navigate between the two realms and connect their singular experience to a greater whole.  Through the placement and misplacement of words, both artist and writer become the choreographers of experience through the universal and transcendental power of language "In [Dickinson's] letters she said she travelled when she closed her eyes, and that she went to sleep like it were a country. In her room alone, she said, was freedom. Here she wrote one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five poems. Dickinson shut her eyes and went places this world never was." Roni Horn in: Louise Neri, Lynne Cooke Thierry de Duve, Roni Horn, London 2000, p. 96