Roni Horn

In the south of Iceland is Landbrot, whose geologic particulars present a unique landscape. It is a place closer to fairy tales than to science, indeed a place easy to imagine as the singular source of fairies and elves worldwide. It is easy, too, to imagine the sensual comfort and satisfaction to be found there. Mother, Wonder is the eleventh book in Horn’s ongoing series “To Place,” which she initiated in 1989 and exists only in book form. All the volumes focus on Iceland and the evolving experiences of the artist there; together they form a flowing dialogue addressing the relationship between identity and place. The titles to date in the coveted “To Place” encyclopedia are Bluff Life (1990), Folds (1991), Lava (1992), Pooling Waters (1994), Verne’s Journey (1995), Haraldsdóttir (1996), Arctic Circles (1998), Becoming a Landscape (2001), Doubt Box (2006) and Haraldsdóttir, Part Two (2011).

Accompagné d’un texte d’Hélène Cixous.

Ce travail porte sur les phénomènes d’apparition et de disparition à travers 36 portraits évanescents d’un clown : mutabilité de l’apparence, dissolution ou effacement.

A luminous face rises again and again from the hot waters of Iceland. An unknown face becoming, page by page and photo by photo, a multitude. Her face is a collection of expressions telling the weather. But here in this book with her – you become the weather.

« These photographs were taken in July and August of 1994. For a six-week period I traveled with Margret throughout Iceland. Using the naturally heated waters that are commonplace there, we went from pool to pool. We worked daily, mostly outsdie, and regardless of the changeable, often unpredictable climate that frequents the island. » Roni Horn