In search of the mechanized soul

German artist presents dynamic sculptures in Beijing, Xu Haoyu reports.

Rebecca Horn, one of the representative German artists emerging from the 1980s on the international stage, is exhibiting in Beijing a series of dynamic mechanical sculptures and gouache paintings created after 2000.

Her ongoing exhibition The Journey to China at Hua International is part of the Gallery Weekend Beijing, one of the major annual art events in the capital. It marks Horn's first solo exhibition in China. It is curated by Thomas Schulte, who is the principal of the artist's Berlin gallery.

Horn's mechanical installations, whether they are grand pianos suspended from ceilings or small, delicate objects, have become increasingly poetic in recent years. The artist suggests that they possess a soul because they move, tremble, faint, almost fall apart and then revive.

"They are not perfect machines," she says. "I am interested in the soul of things, not the machines themselves. I am interested in the story between the machine and its audience."

The core piece of the exhibition is The Burning Bush (2001), featuring metallic branches that extend upward and outward, moving slowly up and down nonstop.

In the exhibition, this piece interacts with another two artworks presented in large glass display cases, creating a sense of connection. The metal branches of The Burning Bush, the delicate bamboo tufts in The Two-Eyed Man (2019), and the rising, branching, dripping and rotating paint in the watercolor painting titled Blood Tree (2011) engage in what the artist says is a mutual dialogue.

In The Two-Eyed Man, a collage composed of bamboo branches, seashells, colored pencils, and a glass egg filled with sand fills the space with peaceful atmosphere. When the motor starts, the bamboo sways slowly, moving toward the tip of the large seashell, yet its sharp leaves never truly touch the shell.

The motifs present in the exhibition are also common in other works by Horn and form a significant part of her artistic language. They utilize various elements, resonating with Horn's broader body of work. For instance, the violin and bow behind the glass in the second display case of Forbidden Games — Lazlo's Violin (2019) echo her iconic installation pieces The Tower of the Nameless and Concert for Buchenwald.