#art, Rebecca Horn in Women Artists Series 2024

Lamentably we lost Rebecca last September (2024). She was one of the pioneering women of Performance Art. And although this is a genre that I am not even sure should be included in the Fine Arts, perhaps it should be in the Theatre Department, she did make history and is important as a feminist artist. She specialised in Installations and some of them were quite unique and interesting…

Rebecca Horn was born in Germany in 1944. Rebelling from the wishes of her parents that wanted her to study Economics, Rebecca registered at the Hamburg Fine Arts Academy, (Hochschule für Bildende Künste), where she attended from 1964 to 1970.

The philosophy of her art revolved around the human body, its extensions and its ability to act as a machine. She thought of the body as an object that should be manipulated to find the extent of its possibilities. She accomplished this through her sculpture, video, installations, performance and film. Her search was constant and the object of her search, her art, was the multiplicity (aspects) of the body. Horn always tried to surpass her previous artistic efforts.

Rebecca also loved to draw and made many drawings. Her search also led her to poetry and to the making movies. She lived in Barcelona (1964) and was greatly influenced by the movies of Luis Buñuel and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Horn went on to direct several movies like: Die Eintänzer (1978), La Ferdinanda: Sonata for a Medici Villa, and Buster’s Bedroom. All her movies seem to flow around her obsession with imperfect bodies and the balance created between the human figure and objects. She collaborated with Jannis Kounellis and as well produced movies, including Buster’s Bedroom (1990) starring Donald Sutherland.

Horn died September 6, 2024 in Bad König, Hesse, Germany. She had retired from public life in 2015 after suffering a stroke. She was 80 years of age.

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