Roni Horn – You Are the Weather

The American artist Roni Horn has been travelling regularly for the past 20 years to Iceland for extended stays. The results are not only installations but books with drawings and photographs as well. In conversation she states: “I am working on the sixth volume at the moment, which concentrates exclusively on this one woman, on close ups of her face. I photograph this woman, Margrét, in the water. This optic matrix was very important, as water is a true key phenomenon in Iceland. It was a quite easy relation. I did not say anything about what she had to do. She simply got into the water and I began to take photographs. In sunlight or under a stormy, cloudy sky – the water surrounded her, was on her and her hair was sometimes wet and sometimes tousled by the wind (…) You do not look at this woman in the traditional manner of nude photography. You look at this woman, who is also looking at you (…) Through her relation to the weather, the light or the wind, she takes on these different personalities.” The result is a series of 100 portraits: You are the Weather.

The exhibition was curated by Roni Horn and Urs Stahel.