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拍品专文
Eluding any fixed identity, Opposite of White, v. 2 is an elegant, ink-black example of Roni Horn’s celebrated cast-glass sculptures that explore ambiguity, duality and change. Executed in 2007, this piece forms part of an extensive and prominent body of work featuring cast glass dating from the late 1990s. Examples are held in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Tate, London; the Kröller-Müller Museum, the Netherlands; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Displayed directly on the floor, the weighty, circular sculpture plays with the viewer’s sense of material states, calling into question what is solid and what is liquid. Composed of textured, frosted sides and a highly polished upper surface, the mass of solid black glass can appear like a still pool of dark water, threatening to spill over the brim, yet at the same time emanating an aura of tranquility. In common with Horn’s other glass sculptures, Opposite of White, v. 2 has been made by very gradually pouring liquid glass into a mold over a period of twenty-four hours. The glass is then left to cool slowly over several months. Because the top of the molten glass is left open to the air, it has no marks on the surface, whereas the sides of the work reflect the irregular texture of the mold. The top of the work is then fire-polished with a torch until it becomes smooth and brilliantly reflective. Therefore, despite its solidity and strength, Opposite of White, v. 2 continues to be in a subtle state of flux, endlessly responding to the environment, the level of light and the movement and position of the viewer.
It is this understanding of an object’s capacity for continued mutability that distinguishes Horn’s work from the minimalist movement with which she is often associated. While she shares their economic—and often profoundly beautiful—aesthetic, she is interested in the viewer’s participation in the work, in the sense that “that the work comes together in the presence of the viewer and not outside that presence” (R. Horn, quoted in “Manifold Singularity: An Interview with Roni Horn”, Border Crossings Magazine, June 2009, online [accessed: 4/8/2025).
Horn is also wary of categorization; indeed, a fascination with ambiguity and paradox threads throughout her work and career. This is what drew her to use glass as a material initially. She was compelled to explore its ability to suggest two states at once. “In the glass pieces, what fascinates me has a lot to do with the essence of something that has one appearance but is really something completely different. For example, glass is a (super-cooled) liquid, not a solid. It’s a pretty amazing thing that a material as ubiquitous as glass can masquerade like that. It’s like having a mask but the mask is identical to the real thing” (R. Horn, quoted in Roni Horn: Everything Was Sleeping as if the Universe Were a Mistake, exh. cat., Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona 2014, p.128).
Displayed directly on the floor, the weighty, circular sculpture plays with the viewer’s sense of material states, calling into question what is solid and what is liquid. Composed of textured, frosted sides and a highly polished upper surface, the mass of solid black glass can appear like a still pool of dark water, threatening to spill over the brim, yet at the same time emanating an aura of tranquility. In common with Horn’s other glass sculptures, Opposite of White, v. 2 has been made by very gradually pouring liquid glass into a mold over a period of twenty-four hours. The glass is then left to cool slowly over several months. Because the top of the molten glass is left open to the air, it has no marks on the surface, whereas the sides of the work reflect the irregular texture of the mold. The top of the work is then fire-polished with a torch until it becomes smooth and brilliantly reflective. Therefore, despite its solidity and strength, Opposite of White, v. 2 continues to be in a subtle state of flux, endlessly responding to the environment, the level of light and the movement and position of the viewer.
It is this understanding of an object’s capacity for continued mutability that distinguishes Horn’s work from the minimalist movement with which she is often associated. While she shares their economic—and often profoundly beautiful—aesthetic, she is interested in the viewer’s participation in the work, in the sense that “that the work comes together in the presence of the viewer and not outside that presence” (R. Horn, quoted in “Manifold Singularity: An Interview with Roni Horn”, Border Crossings Magazine, June 2009, online [accessed: 4/8/2025).
Horn is also wary of categorization; indeed, a fascination with ambiguity and paradox threads throughout her work and career. This is what drew her to use glass as a material initially. She was compelled to explore its ability to suggest two states at once. “In the glass pieces, what fascinates me has a lot to do with the essence of something that has one appearance but is really something completely different. For example, glass is a (super-cooled) liquid, not a solid. It’s a pretty amazing thing that a material as ubiquitous as glass can masquerade like that. It’s like having a mask but the mask is identical to the real thing” (R. Horn, quoted in Roni Horn: Everything Was Sleeping as if the Universe Were a Mistake, exh. cat., Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona 2014, p.128).