The exhibition
Roni Horn: I am paralyzed with hope
1 APRIL – 10 SEPTEMBER 2023
I am paralyzed with hope is a comprehensive and site-specific presentation by American artist Roni Horn (born New York, 1955). The exhibition was designed by the artist in response to Centro Botín’s architecture and location on the open bay of Santander.
The artworks on display and their distinct layout reinforce Horn´s practice of being present in the moment, awake to her surroundings and atmospheric variations. In this spirit, the exhibition invites us to slow down, to be attentive to the pairings and oppositions revealed in each room, to invest time in the profound dialogue created between space, light, water, and Horn´s quietly radical oeuvre.
The exhibition spans three decades of Roni Horn´s career through conceptually oriented photographs, drawings, sculptures, and performance. It highlights Horn’s ongoing exploration on the process of becoming in relation to identity and place.
It also includes the first institutional presentation of LOG (March 22, 2019 - May 17, 2020). The series features 406 sheets of drawn paper that function as a record of daily observations and events that have informed the artist's sensibility and voice.
The artist has travelled extensively across Iceland’s remote, vast landscapes since 1975. These solitary experiences in a geologically young—and therefore changeable— landscape have long been important influences in her life and work. Water and weather are also central to her practice, as their mutability and ambiguous nature mirror our identity, understood as something that is not fixed or stable.
I am paralyzed with hope is complemented by a publication, co-published with La Fábrica, with newly commissioned texts by American author Carmen Maria Machado and Spanish researcher and writer Isabel de Naverán, as well as an exchange between Roni Horn and curator Bárbara Rodriguez Muñoz.
Curator: Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz, Director of Exhibitions and the Collection, Centro Botín
Image:
Roni Horn, LOG (March 22, 2019–May 17, 2020), 2019-2020 Detail. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth © Roni Horn
Roni Horn (born New York, 1955) had held solo exhibitions in institutions such as: Kunsthalle Basel (1995), Centre Pompidou (2003), Tate Modern (2009), Whitney Museum of American Art (2009), Kunsthalle Bregenz (2010), Kunsthalle Hamburg (2011), Fundació Joan Miró Barcelona (2014), De Pont Foundation, Tilburg (1994, 1998, 2016), Fondation Beyeler (2016, 2020), Glenstone Museum, Potomac, MD (2017), Pinakothek der Moderne Munich (2018), The Drawing Institute at The Menil Collection, Houston, TX (2018-2019), and the Pola Museum of Art, Hakone, Japan (2021-2022). Horn has received numerous awards. Among them 3 NEA Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1990, the Alpert Award in 1998 and the Joan Miro prize in 2013.
