"The Snake's Ghost" (2008)

"The Snake's Ghost" is the kind of kinetic sculpture for which Rebecca Horn has become known. It sits on the floor in the front room at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York. It consists of a pool of gray water in a circular steel pan and a finely fabricated apparatus with a spiraling copper rod. The rod agitates the liquid from time to time as it nudges a dark form barely visible on the water’s surface. A spot lit from across the room shows a circle of light that is reflected onto the adjacent wall, projecting the ripples radiating from the rod’s point of entry into the water. As the ripples meet the edge of the pool, they return to create a complex of interference patterns. At the same time the motion of the apparatus calls attention to itself, pulling the eye back and forth between the generated and the generator. As the miniature waves bounce off the sides of the steel pan to devolve inwards, moments of stillness punctuate the activity; temporal patterns of both order and randomness appear. The projection, when stilled, reveals an apparent symmetry between the shadow of the snakelike apparatus and the apparatus itself. Horn’s kinetic sculpture seems capable of generating an infinite number of endlessly captivating images that recall principles of waveforms. Being of a scientific nature, they afford an endless landscape of mind devoid of emotion.

This piece, I think, is very substantial among her three-dimensional works. The assemblage's reflection on the wall suggests a magnified struggle between two waterborne microorganisms. If the poetry in this work is a little oblique, Horn's inclination toward resounding, discipline-bridging Gesamtkunstwerken is clear.

Waltemath, Joan. "Rebecca Horn: Cosmic Maps." Brooklyn Rail (2008). Web. 19 Nov 2009. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/06/artseen/rebecca-horn-cosmic-maps2.

Princenthal, Nancy. "Rebecca Horn: Sean Kelly." Arts Publication (2009). Web. 19 Nov 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_2_97/ai_n31438184/.