Haus der Kunst München: »Rebecca Horn«, 26. April bis 13. Oktober 2024

Haus der Kunst München: »Rebecca Horn«, 26. April bis 13. Oktober 2024

• Major retrospective of internationally renowned artist Rebecca Horn

• Presentation of her transmedial oeuvre spanning six decades

• Focus on performativity shows precisely calculated relationships between space, light, physicality, sound, and rhythm

The comprehensive retrospective »Rebecca Horn« presents an overview of the internationally renowned artist’s life’s work spanning six decades. The show opens at Haus der Kunst München on April 25th and runs until Oktober 13th, 2024.

The retrospective focuses on the aspect of performativity that runs through Rebecca Horn’s (born 1944, Germany) entire oeuvre, from her first works on paper in the 1960s to the early performances and films of the 1970s, the mechanical sculptures of the 1980s, and the expansive installations of the 1990s to the present day. Horn describes her practice as precisely calculated relationships between space, light, physicality, sound, and rhythm, which combine to form an orchestration.

Rebecca Horn said: “First with the tips of your toes, then with your hips, your shoulders, and finally with every detail of your body, right down to the tips of your hair, which multiply ad infinitum in the mirrors.”

The exhibition opens with the newly digitised film footage of Horn’s early work. The artist sees herself first and foremost as a choreographer – but is also inventor, director, author, composer, and poet. Her work centres on the human body and its relationship to nature, culture, technology, and the human and non human. In the early 1970s, Horn devoted herself to the controllability and expansion of the body and used the symbolic power of movement from the language of dance as a medium and catalyst for her choreographic fictions. Since the early 1980s, she has used the idea of incorporation to create symbols of technical physical networking with her mechanical sculptures. In the 1990s, she developed her characteristically immersive spatial installations, in which she deconstructs and restages music, just as she draws inspiration from dance choreography. The exhibition concludes with Horn’s late work, in which she transforms her artistic grammar into an abstract choreography full of poetry and grace.

Virtuously interwoven references to literature, art, and film history run through Rebecca Horn’s entire work. She celebrates the horror of the machine as a continuation of the body, creates existences of the unpresentable, and gives a face to the abysmal. Her oeuvre is a lifelong and currently volatile echo of the progressive decentring of humanity. Through performativity, she places the sensuality of the body in relation to the environment at the centre of her life’s work.

Curated by Jana Baumann with Radia Soukni.

The exhibition is supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. The catalogue will be published by Spector Books in July 24. With contributions by Timothy Baum, Jana Baumann, Hendrik Folkerts, Jack Halberstam, Nancy Spector, among others.

April 26th through Oktober 13th, 2024. Haus der Kunst, Ostgalerie, Prinzregentenstraße 1, 80538 Munich

Pan Daijing, “Mute”, Closing performance

The live exhibition “Mute” by artist and composer Pan Daijing will be bid farewell on April 13th, 2024 with a performative activation. Pan Daijing's largest solo exhibition to date encompasses choreography, architectural intervention, sound, and moving images, and invites the audience on a journey that spans the entire Westgalerie as well as adjacent spaces inside and outside the building. During the performance, the audience is invited to share the exhibition space with seven dancers and immerse themselves in a composition that combines virtuoso singing and electronic music. They thus become part of the landscape and, as the artist says: “Everything becomes music”. The activation will be performed by Chihiro Araki, Camilla Brogaard, Wai Lok Chan, Amie Jammeh, Kelvin Kilonzo, Cary Shiu, and Pan Daijing.

April 13th, 2024, Westgalerie

“Tune, Sound and beyond”

The series of short sound residencies “Tune” is firmly established in the programme of Haus der Kunst. The invited artists work mainly with sound and present different areas of their work during the residency. The series moves between sound, music and visual art and creates sonic dialogues with the exhibition programme at Haus der Kunst.

Jim C. Nedd, “Remembering Songs”

To mark the publication of Jim C. Nedd's debut monograph Remembering Songs, “Tune” invites the artist to curate a live programme that intimately connects with the book’s themes. On both evenings, a newly commissioned composition will be performed that blends accordion, guitar, and live poetry, showcasing genres from the Colombian Caribbean region. On Friday, the event will also feature a reading, and on Saturday a listening session. New video works by the artist, produced in his native city, Valledupar, will be installed in the Westgalerie throughout the weekend, and on Saturday, Nedd's sound installation for the Terrassensaal, Recuerdos II (Memories II), will open and be installed until October 24.

April 26th and 27th, 2024, 8 pm, Concerts, Auditorium, April 26th through 28th, 2024, Video works, Westgaleriem April 27th through 29th, 2024, Sound installation, Terrassensaal

Open House in April

Every last Friday of the month, Haus der Kunst opens its doors for an “Open House”, with admission free from 4 through 10 pm. “Open House” offers space for encounters and creative exchange. Throughout the year, the programme for cultural education welcomes visitors to various intergenerational offers and short guided (family )tours of the current exhibitions. The Open Atelier offers a creative programme for all age groups from 4 pm to 9 pm; in April, colourful, poetic kaleidoscopes will be built inspired by Liliane Lijn's exhibition.

April 26th 2024, 4 pm, whole house

Liliane Lijn, “Arise Alive”

First large scale solo museum show for Liliane Lijn, surveying her career over six decades, including her sculptural works from the 1980s, as well as her painting, drawing, film work, and installations from the late 1950s to today. Inspired by Surrealist ideas, ancient mythologies and feminist, scientific, and linguistic thought, a key focus for Liliane Lijn is visualising the invisible, using the latest materials, and experimenting with reflection, motion, and light. She was one of the first women artists to experiment with kinetic sculpture, sparking a lifelong commitment to the understanding of energy. As she explained, she wanted to “see the world in terms of light and energy”. Organised with mumok—#Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, in collaboration with Tate St Ives.

New exhibition since April 5th, 2024, Nordgalerie

WangShui, “Toleranzfenster”

WangShui’s practice explores various dimensions of human machine entanglement through video, sculpture, and painting. The exhibition has been developed as a form of screenplay in which the machine has become the scriptwriter, applying countless variations of its training material. Featuring their newly commissioned live simulation “Certainty of the Flesh” (2023) alongside a selection of ethereal paintings etched into aluminium, Window of Tolerance reflects our symbiosis with the technologies that are now determining our lives.

Only until April 28th, 2024, Südgalerie

Martino Gamper, “Sitzung”

The Mittelhalle of Haus der Kunst has become a constantly evolving social space of movement and encounters with the playful new work “Sitzung” by the acclaimed Italian designer, Martino Gamper OBE. Gamper was in residence at Haus der Kunst in July 23rd, creating a series of newly designed chairs — to gather, to rest, and to play. Until the end of the exhibition, self brought food and drinks, as well as games, are welcome in the Mittelhalle. We call this “BYOE (Bring Your Own Everything)”. Everything (well, almost everything) is allowed.

Extended until October 27th, 2024, Mittelhalle