Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn is a German Visual Artists who attended the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts for one year, pulling herself out when she came down with a severe case of lung poisoning due to working without a mask.  While in recovery, she lost both her parents causing her to feel isolated, and due to her weakened state had to change the medium that she produced her art in.  The shift in her art resulted in Horn turning to creating sculptures using cloth and balsa wood, and started producing pieces that helped her explore her surroundings while bedridden.  These sculptures became what she is best known for ~ extensions of the body.  In addition, her isolation pushed her into creating cocoon like sculptures, exploring the way she fit within the space that was around her.  It’s said that she may have also needed an outlet to protect her from bad things around here, hiding herself away in her cocoon. 

White Body Fan, 1972
Fabric and metal

The Feathered Prison Fan, 1978

Feathers around armature











While her pieces are quite interesting, and watching her work with them is truly amazing, I’d have to say I’m drawn to her rendition of her cocoon which represents “images of confinement—cocoons, swaddling, bondage, prostheses”.  The Feathered Prison Fan looks warm and inviting to me, a place to shut out the world.  It seems like a safe place, a quiet place, a place where you can just be within yourself and your own mind and not have to worry about the cold, harsh reality that is outside of the soft feathers.  The light color seems peaceful, like placing yourself inside would be meditative to the mind, body, and soul.  After reading about the life Horn encountered, I can understand why she would want a place that is all hers, a place where no one or nothing can get to her.  And with the daily stresses of life, I too would love a cocoon to crawl into, a place where I can shut the world out and just be.