Blue Monday Strip by Rebecca Horn: Themes and Techniques

ghastly Monday moorage by Rebecca trumpet Themes and Techniques finesseist Rebecca car horn.Title/Date good-for-nothingness Monday p ar, 1993. Materials Typewriters, ink, metal, and motors.Dimensions 192 1/8 x 137 inches. Site Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.Provenance Gift of the artist.Introduction to macabre Monday Strip by Rebecca HornThe compute of Rebecca Horn is appealing to many another(prenominal) in the art world. To me, it is appealing in agencys that I, as a fellow artist, find featurely compelling although we go bad in antithetical media, a common theme confabms to resonate when I observe her work and comp are it to my get. There is a sense of the fleeting nature of our physical existence against a context of the mundane details of feel. Her works are animated, though in a ofttimes different expression than my witness art is animated The sense of natural action and movement I see in her work is fewthing that is appealing and energizing. It brings to headland the limitations of the human body, all the same at the same succession it brings to light the design that human activity goes on, level though we as item-by-items do not.According to matchless biographer/critic, Horns work is set in the nexus between body and gondola, and it transmogrifies the ordinary into the enigmatic (Ragheb, 1993). Horns talent to do this with much(prenominal) deft yet subtle precision is part of her appeal to me as a practiti iodinr. She preempt take everyday objects and juxtapose them with much(prenominal) whimsicalness that heapers look at them in mod ways. Doing this within my avouch medium is something I hindquarters strive for, and hope on some level to achieve what she has done with her sculpture, in her unique way, sets a bill I can aspire to in my own chosen medium.nowhere is this more apparent than in Blue Monday Strip, a 1993 piece that was a gift from Horn to the Guggenheim Museum in tonic York City.Blue Monday Strip big characteristics of Form and ContentHorns piece, Blue Monday Strip, was actually a gift that the artist bestowed upon the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. This dynamic work measures, in inches, 192 1/8th by 137, and is composed of everyday (although some are somewhat dated) materials older, or vintage typewriters, ink, metal, and motors. A crucial aspect of this particular piece is that it is mechanized, so there is movement it is essentially, animated, and in quite a literal sense. As an animator, this is a feature that is important to me.Ragheb has described Blue Monday Strip as a group of vintage typewriters that are emancipated from the orderly world power world and set akimbo, transformed into an unruly dance orchestra whose keys chatter ceaselessly in a raucous dialogue (1993). The monotony of the droning typewriters is clearly symbolic of the relentless sameness that was at one time experienced by the secretaries who operated them each week, starting on the initiative day of the work cyclethe blue Monday An occasional splotch of blue paintpresumably ink? Might we go so removed-off as to say sweat, or possibly tears?breaks the monotony. The ability to pillow life into dyspnoeic forms in such an effective and dramatic way is something that I, as an animator, find truly compelling.Another feature of Horns work that appeals to me is her sense of perspective her work is based in publica quantifiable and verifiable reality, as I would like tap to be. In other words, much of modern art has been criticized for its abstract qualities a good deal a sculpture or painting will be unacceptable to describe until we read the title. Then we can say, oh, yes, its clearly a pear, anyone can see thatwhen in reality it looks nothing like a pear at all.Horns work does not exact this type of abstractness its primary components are easily identified as typewriters, nevertheless because of the mode of presentation, we are forced into perceive them in a new way. As Winterson has scripted, art has the knack of helping us to see what we would usually miss. . . Artists see better than we do, and help us to look twice. Horns way of seeing is to go past the sensible, obvious arrangements of objects and people, and rearrange them in a way that is not obvious at all (Winterson, 2005).In this specific piece, the objects forward us are authentic, but they are in an unusual setting, one which calls attention to them and forces us to insure them in unusual ways. Blue Monday Strip is, as the title enkindles, a strip, or section, of a life that includes not just one, but several typewriters. What does this suggest, other than an office? An office on a blue Monday? A setting in which individuals more or less likely womenfind themselves trapped again and again, Monday after Monday, with little likeliness of change beyond the Saturday and Sunday that separate the weeks.This is the kind of thought do by I would like to spark with my own workit need not be mysterious to the viewer it need be nothing more than what it appears to the average eye. But to those who care, or dare, to look, it will suggest ideas and themes in subtle, yet consciously planned ways. As Ragheb says of Horns sculpture, the viewer can see a disorganized row of machines and nothing more or, he or she can see something further. One can feel the peter out of wasted lives, the emptiness of disappointed hopes, the frustration of unfulfil guide desire, by victorious a second look at the forlorn collection of typewriters Whether mechanomorphic bodies or anthropomorphic machines, all of Horns works are pregnant with sexual allusions and the ache of desire (Ragheb).Horns career has spanned everyplace three decades, and though she has experimented with form and theme throughout, she has returned again and again to corporate themes. At times, her work is a celebration of the body, in respectful, awed acclaim of its power at others, it seems a re proachful and cynical statement on the treachery of the body.Ideas, Practices, and Issues Relating to the BodyHorns early reading turned on(p) an interest in Surrealism and the absurd this was further inspired in new-fashioned adulthood, when she was introduced to the works of Franz Kafka and Jean Genet, and by the films of Luis Buuel and Pier Paolo Pasolini (Ragheb). The absurdist philosophies of Kafka and Genet, and the obscure themes of Buuel and Pasolini, are unembellished to a great extent in all of her works. Yet what stirred her life and her work most was what she has interpreted as a perfidiousness of her own body. In an interview with Jeanette Winterson last year, Horn described dickens of the key events that caused a change in the course of her life and work. foremost was the onset, at age 20i, of a serious lung condition. This was the result of working, by her own account, unprotected, with glass fibre. No one had told her that it was a dangerous material. As a resul t, after a flow of intense work, while living in a cheap hotel in Barcelonaone of those hotels where you rent rooms by the hourshe found herself dangerously ill. During this unfortunate period, she also found herself only ifboth parents had died. I was totally isolated, she told Winterson. To recuperate, she was forced to spend time in a sanatorium, a setting in which her sense of closing off was magnified.This enforced period of extended rest became an experience that ultimately led her to consider the workings of the body in a new way. She began to view the body it in terms of isolation and vulnerability. Thats when I began to produce my root body-sculptures. I could sew lying in bed (qtd. in Winterson, 2005). What resulted from this period were a series of designs that would extend her body explains Winterson (2005).Apparently, this was more than a reactionist phase, as Horn continued on this trajectory after her spillage from the sanatorium. Back at art school, she worked w ith soft materials, such as prosthetic bandages and padding, creating protective, cocoon-like pieces. Works from this early period include Finger Gloves (1972), Pencil suppress (1972), and Black Cockfeathers (1971). According to Winterson, isolation becomes a message in a bottle the viewer can retrieve what is inside (2005). Eventually Horn gravitated more and more into performance art, but instead of abandoning the body-extension sculptures, she used them as part of her performance (Ragheb).The limitations of the body, and of ones time on earth, are apparent even as the actions of Horns mechanized sculptures suggest endless time. There is a beauty in the symmetry of Blue Monday Strip, a duality in the suggestion of the mundane in a setting of what appears to be perpetual motion. To express animation through inanimate objects is to do the unexpected, particularly in Horns chosen format. This is what I would like to achieve in my own art.Conclusion A contextual InvestigationAll art is contextual in that it is dependent upon its environment. What it is, as well as the time in which it is brought into existence, are both aspects that essential be considered when assessing its value. Art that relates to the body is unique in the sense that although our individual bodies flummox a limited amount of time on this earth, the body, such as it is, is perpetual. It will always exist, though each of us as individuals has a limited time span on this earth.The work of Rebecca Horn is appealing in a timeless sense one gets the sentiment that it will be appreciated and valued even in the far distant future, in a time when machines such as typewriters have ceased to play a role in society, other than as a symbol of the past. Her work is relevant in ways that I, as a fellow artist, find significant and familiarand this familiarity exists despite the fact that we work in media that are altogether different from each other. Despite this difference, a common theme exists and s eems to resonate when I observe her work and consider it against my own. Though we work with different materials, there is a common theme, a sense of the fleeting nature of our corporeal existence against a background of the details of life. Her works are animated, though in a much different way than my own art is animated.The sense of activity and movement I see in her work is something that is appealing and energizing. It brings to mind the limitations of the human body, yet at the same time it brings to light the concept that human activity goes on, even though we as individuals do not. Doing this within my own medium is something I can strive for, and hope on some level to achieve.As Ragheb has written, Horns work is located in the nexus between body and machine, and it transmogrifies the ordinary into the enigmatic (1993). I would take these even further Horns ability to find a niche between body and machine has been effect with dexterity and precision, yet at the same time wi th a nuance that lends itself to individual interpretation. This, in essence, is the crux of her appeal to me as a practitioner. She can take everyday objectstypewriters, motors, ink, bits of metaland juxtapose them in such unique ways that viewers look at them in ways that are new and yet familiar at the same time.ReferencesCork, Richard. 2005. Rebecca Horn invades our senses. clock Online, Weekend Review, Arts, May 21, 2005. Retrieved fromhttp//entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14933-1620638,00.htmlRagheb, J. Fiona. Rebecca Horn. Retrieved fromhttp//www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_66.htmlSmith, Roberta. 1993. Review/Art Fountains of Mercury, aPiano Spitting Out Keys Sculpture as Dramas. New York Times, July 2, 1993.Retrieved electronically on 5/12/06 fromhttp//query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3D81E3BF931A35754C0A965958260&sec=&pagewanted= brandWinterson, Jeanette. 2005. The Bionic Woman. TheGuardian. Monday, May 23, 2005. Retrieved from http//art s.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1489933,00.htmli In the Winterson interview, Horn is quoted as explaining that the onset of her illness occurred at age 20, although critic J. Fiona Rahgreb and others have written the age as 24.