Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn was born on on March 23, 1944 in Germany, she is best known for her body modifications. Horn was fist taught to draw by her Romanian governess & quickly became obsessed. She loved the way that drawing allowed her to express herself, it was not restrictive unlike oral language. She lived with her family in Germany after the end of World War II. She had to learn French & English because at the time Germans were hated. When she drew it didn't have to be in German, French or English, she could just draw.


At 19 Horn rebelled against her parents plans for her to study economics & instead attended Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts. After her first year she contracted severe lung poisoning & was hospitalised. She worked in her apartment without a mask, she was unaware of the dangers of breathing in glass fiber. During Horn's recovery, both of her parents died, she felt totally isolated. Despite her loss & extreme isolation she continued to find comfort in her art. She used softer materials & drew whilst recovering in bed. She slowly began to break out of her isolation by creating sculptures & strange body extensions. Horn was able to communicate her loneliness through body forms.

Horn has produced a large body of work, in a range of mediums including film, performances, sculptures, installations, drawings & photographs. In her earlier performative pieces she explores the connection between the human body & space by creating marks using body extensions. Her later work substitutes the human body with animated sculptures that have a life of their own. The objects that she uses in her work have been freed from their material form & are transformed into metaphors, which touch on mythical, historical, literary and spiritual imagery. In these two performance pieces Horn has used body extensions to make marks.

Scratching both walls at once (1974)

Pencil Mask (1972)