Roni Horn and Danh Vō | In Conversation | Xavier Hufkens

Roni Horn and Danh Vō in conversation on the occasion of their concurrent exhibitions at Xavier Hufkens (17 March-6 May 2023).
Since the late 1970s, Roni Horn (b. 1955, New York, USA) has produced drawings, photography, sculpture and installations, as well as works involving words and writing. Horn’s work, which has an emotional and psychological dimension, can be seen an engagement with post-Minimalist forms as containers for affective perception. She talks about her work being 'moody' and ‘site-dependent’. Her attention to the specific qualities of certain materials spans all mediums, from the textured pigment drawings, to the use of solid gold or cast glass, and rubber. Nature and humankind, the weather, literature and poetry are central to her art. In 1990, she made the first in an evocative, on-going series of books entitled To Place. She has referred to these books, which explore themes such as identity, site specificity and nature through photographs of the landscapes, ice, water and people of Iceland, as “the entrance to all my work …which is extremely important to me.” An Artangel commission led to the creation of Vatnasafn/Library of Water, a sculptural installation and a community centre in a library building in Stykkisholmur in Iceland in 2007.
Danh Vō (b. 1975, Bà Rja, Vietnam)’s conceptual artworks and installations often draw upon elements of autobiography and collective experience to explore broader historical, social or political themes relating to migration, identification and authorial status. Born in 1975, the year that marked the end of the American Vietnam War, Vō’s family became victims of the Cambodian-Vietnamese War that broke out immediately afterwards. They fled the country by boat when Vō was four years old; he has no memories of his early childhood in Vietnam. The vessel was rescued at sea by a Danish freighter, the nationality of which determined the fate of the refugees-the ramifications of this fortuitous encounter are reflected in the role that chance and coincidence continue to play in Vō’s practice. His work frequently incorporates documents, photographs, found objects (with emotional or historical significance), lettering or appropriations of works by other artists or designers, which have accrued meaning over time, through transfer of ownership or shifting social or cultural contexts. He is particularly interested in the discrepancies between myth and reality, between the past and the present, and between the malleable identities and histories imposed on him by others as well as those that he creates for himself.
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