Roni Horn facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Roni Horn
Horn at Barcelona's Fundació Joan Miró, where she was given the Joan Miró Award
Born	September 25, 1955 New York City
Nationality	American
Education	Rhode Island School of Design, Yale University
Known for	Visual arts
Awards	Joan Miró Award 2013 by Fundació Miró

Roni Horn (born September 25, 1955) is an American artist and writer. She creates many different kinds of art, including sculptures, photographs, and books. Horn was born in New York City, where she still lives and works today.

Early Life and Learning

Roni Horn was born in New York City on September 25, 1955. She was named after her grandmothers, who were both called Rose. Horn once shared that having a gender-neutral name, Roni, was helpful to her. She felt it allowed her to keep her gender private when she was younger.

She grew up in Rockland County, New York. Horn finished high school early and started college at the Rhode Island School of Design when she was 16. She earned her degree in 1975. Later, she received a master's degree in sculpture from Yale University in 1978.

Since 1975, Horn has traveled often to Iceland. The unique landscape and quiet nature of Iceland have greatly influenced her artwork. In 2023, she even became an Icelandic citizen.

Exploring Art and Ideas

Opposite of White, v.2 (Large) (A) (2006-2007) at the National Gallery of Art

Roni Horn has a deep connection with Iceland's geography, geology, weather, and culture. She first visited Iceland in the 1970s as a young art graduate. Since then, she has returned to the island many times.

The To Place Book Series

Horn has an ongoing series of books called To Place, which started in 1990. These books are all about Iceland.

• Bluff Life (1990) features 13 drawings made in 1982. She created them during a two-month stay in a lighthouse off the southern coast of Iceland.
• Folds (1991) is a collection of photographs showing old sheepfolds in Iceland.
• To Place: Verne's Journey (1995) is the fifth book in the series.
• Arctic Circles (1998) is a photo essay. It shows the endless horizon of the North Sea, soft eider bird feathers, and a lighthouse beacon.
• Doubt Box (Book IX) (2006) is not a regular book. It's a collection of cards printed on both sides. The cards show pictures of glacial water, stuffed birds, and a face.

These To Place books are considered very important in the world of art books. Other books by Horn include Dictionary of Water and This is Me, This is You.

Art Installations

Vatnasafn, Horn's Library of Water in Stykkishólmur

Weather plays a big part in Roni Horn's art. She has created several public art pieces:

• You Are the Weather—Munich (1996–97) is a permanent artwork in Munich, Germany. It's located at the German weather service office.
• You in You (1997) is a rubber-tiled walkway in a train station in Basel, Switzerland. It looks like a unique rock formation found in Iceland.
• Some Thames (2000) is a permanent installation at the University of Akureyri in Iceland. It has 80 photographs of water placed throughout the university's public areas.
• Vatnasafn / Library of Water (2007) is a long-term artwork in Stykkishólmur, Iceland. This installation is made of water collected from Icelandic glaciers.

The "Library of Water" is in a building that used to be a library. It sits high up in the town, looking over the harbor and the sea. Horn imagined it as both a sculpture and a community center.

In 2004, Horn created an installation called Agua Viva for an exhibition in London. This artwork had rubber tiles on the floor with words from a book by Clarice Lispector. The words were arranged in rings and loops, playing with the story's order.

Photo Series

Horn's first photo installation, You Are The Weather (1994-1996), shows 100 close-up pictures of the same woman, Margret. The photos were taken in different geothermal pools in Iceland. Horn wanted to show how a living person changes, like the weather. She also wanted to make viewers think about who the "you" in the title refers to.

You are the Weather, Part 2 was created 15 years later. It uses the same style and features the same model.

The installation Pi (1998) included 45 color images. These pictures were taken over six years in Iceland.

Still Water (The River Thames, for Example) (1999) is a single artwork with fifteen photographs. Each photo shows the surface of the River Thames. Small numbers on the photos point to notes at the bottom of each image.

Sculpture Art

Gold Mats, Paired - For Ross and Felix (1994/1995) at the National Gallery of Art

Things That Happen Again (1986) at the National Gallery of Art

Roni Horn's sculpture Forms from the Gold Field (1990) inspired another artist, Félix González-Torres. In response, Horn created a second gold sculpture, Gold Mats, Paired-For Ross and Felix (1994-1995). She dedicated it to González-Torres and his partner.

Her 1993 series When Dickinson shut her eyes features eight square aluminum poles. They lean against a wall, and each pole has a line from a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Pink Tons (2008) is a huge, solid glass cube. It weighs 4,536 kilograms (about 10,000 pounds)! Horn has worked with a German glass company to create her glass sculptures since she was a student.

Well and Truly (2009-2010) is made of ten solid glass parts. Each part is a cylinder in shades of blue and pale blue-green.

Documentary

Roni Horn was featured on the PBS series Art:21. This show shares stories about modern artists.

Art Shows and Awards

Roni Horn's first solo art show was in 1980 in Munich, Germany. Her career grew quickly in the late 1980s with shows in New York. She has received several awards for her art, including the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts in 1998. She also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim fellowship.

Her art has been shown in many important museums around the world. These include the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Modern in London. She has also participated in major art events like the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale.

In 2009, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a large show of Horn's work called "Roni Horn aka Roni Horn." This show then traveled to other cities, including Boston and London.

In 2019, The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, had a two-part exhibition of her work. It featured her large drawings and other pieces. In 2024, Horn had a solo exhibition in Cologne, Germany, and her first major show in the Nordic countries in Denmark.

Notable Art in Public Collections