Rebecca Horn.

For this assignment, I chose to research Rebecca Horn, a German installation artist, most known for her body modifications and performance art. While Horn has done an array of different types of art, including films, sculptures, spatial installations, drawings, and photographs, I was most intrigued by her performance art and body sculptures and thus decided to make that the main focus of this project.

Rebecca Horn (1944-present)

In 1964, while Rebecca was studying at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, she contracted lung poisoning from working with glass fiber without a mask, something nobody had warned her about. From then on, she was only able to work with softer materials, such as fabrics and feathers. Horn became very isolated while confined to her bed, which is where her inspiration hit. "I began to produce my first body-sculptures. I could sew lying in bed." The goal of her art from that point on was to suppress her "loneliness by communicating through bodily forms." In her early body sculptures and performances, she also explored the equilibrium between body and space, as well as creating works of art that either inhibited or emphasized bodily movement.

Stills from some of her works:

Pencil Mask, 1972

White Body Fan, 1972

Rebecca Horn had an issue that she was addressing with her pieces - to quash her loneliness. For my piece, I wanted to address an issue that was personal and relevant to me. I chose to do a performance piece on emotional manipulation and how controlling people can sometimes be of one's emotions. While I made my issue something relevant to me, I also wanted to implement Horn's experimentation of body and space within my performance as well as emphasize bodily movement. I did this by using string to create a two-person body sculpture.

Here are some stills from my performance, "Manipulation":

"Manipulation"