The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is pleased to announce a solo exhibition this fall of the work of Rebecca Horn, a major representative of the contemporary German art world. This will be the first large-scale exhibition of her work in Japan.

Horn has been known for her performance works involving the wearing of feathers, horns, and mirrors. Since her participation in the 1972 Documenta show in her 20s, she has energetically pursued a range of artistic activity that continues to tackle new territories of art, one after the other--beginning with kinetic sculpture as well as film, and continuing on to capture the fascination of a great number of people--audiences with an interest not only in visual art, but that include film and dance enthusiasts as well. Her performances, which began in the late 1960s, sought to expand the functions of the human body, improve communications with others, and develop a rapport with mythical animals and nature. The devices that attached to the body and enhanced its physical perceptions were first used in performance, then eventually developed into independent, kinetic-mechanical sculptural works. Later, in what amounted to over ten years of life in New York, Horn undertook the production of highly narrative, full-length films, and incorporated the sculptures and movements from her earlier work into this new context of film, transforming their significance. Since the 1980s, after moving back to her home country of Germany, Horn's work that directly confronts modern historical issues has been acclaimed for its ability to tie together personal experience and social memory. One early example of this work involves the conversion of the interior of an abandoned tower in the city of Münster into a piece that utilizes its history as the subject matter. In recent years, Horn has been working on large-scale installations and stage designs using music composed by Hayden Chisholm. She has also made, without the use of tools, a series of unrestrained drawings that emphasize direct human movement, developing a completely free mode of creation.

This exhibition is a full-scale presentation of Horn's work. With all representative film footage, which includes the performance records from the 1970s and the full-length narrative films from the 1990s, as well as installations and two- and three-dimensional works that she has been producing since the 1990s, a total of forty exhibits allows one to trace the development of relationships between the various media in which Horn works. The flow of various invisible energies of humans and nature are transformed into visible form via movement, light, and the traces of such. The exhibition promises to be an unparalleled opportunity to experience this highly original, creative trajectory in MOT's vast space.

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　この秋、ドイツの現代美術家レベッカ・ホルン(1944 - )の、日本で初めての個展を開催することになりました。
羽や角をまとうパフォーマンスで知られるレベッカは、二十歳代での「ドクメンタⅤ」展参加以来、次々と新たな領域に挑戦する精力的な活動を通して、美術のみならず、ダンスや映画の愛好者をはじめ、多くのひとびとを魅了してきました。
他者とのコミュニケーションの回復や、自然との交感を求める初期のパフォーマンスで着用した知覚の拡張装置はやがて、機械仕掛けで動く立体作品へと展開していきます。その後、滞米生活の中で着手した長編映画では、これら動く彫刻を取り込み、その意味の変容を軸とした映像世界を展開しています。また1980年代に活動の拠点を母国に移してからは、近現代史と直接向き合い、個人の体験を社会の記憶と結びつける作品は高い評価を得てきました。近年は、作曲家との協働によるインスタレーションや舞台美術、のびやかなドローイングを手がけるなど、その自由な創造をとおして、現代における芸術の可能性を問いかけているのです。
　本展は、パフォーマンスの記録から長編映画まで、映像の代表作全てと、絵画や彫刻の近作をあわせ、それぞれのメディアを関係づけながら展開してきた活動を本格的に紹介するものです。自然や人間の様々なエネルギーの流れを、目に見えるかたちに変換していく、独自の創造の軌跡を堪能するまたとない機会となるでしょう。

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