Dedicated to Rebecca Horn (1944–2024), one of the foremost German artists of the 20th century, this retrospective brings together thirteen large-scale installations and kinetic sculptures created between the 1980s and the 2010s.
Spanning a career of six decades, Horn explored the physical and metaphysical dimensions of being, longing, and desire through performances such as Körperextensionen (Body Extensions), alongside kinetic sculptures, paintings, drawings, poetry, film, stage designs, and site-specific installations. Her practice is unified by recurring materials, mechanical elements, and a symbolic balance between the tangible and the poetic.
The exhibition features landmark works including Turm der Namenlosen (Tower of the Nameless) (1994), a tower of fruit-picking ladders with motorized violins, evoking refugee musicians in Vienna during the Yugoslav Wars; Preußischen Brautmaschine (Prussian Bride Machine) (1988), a drawing machine in dialogue with Surrealism and the Readymade; Concert for Anarchy (2006), an upside-down piano set in motion by pneumatic mechanisms; and Hauchkörper (Breathing Bodies) (2017), Horn's most recent series. Intimate works reflecting on nature, such as Parrot Wings Blue (1993), a motorized brass sculpture gently animating bird feathers to mimic flight, and Magic Rock (2005), which periodically splits open to reveal a hidden crystal, are presented in Villa Waldfrieden.
