Glenn Ligon’s black Moon Jars got me looking through the exhibitions at Tokyo’s Rat Hole Gallery, which was an underground space operated by the streetwear brand Hysteric Glamour. It closed at the beginning of COVID. Some of their shows are documented on Contemporary Art Library, including their third show with Roni Horn, The Selected Gifts (1974-2015), in 2017-18.
Horn presented “a vicarious self-portrait” as told by a series of mostly life-sized photographs of 43 gifts received over 41 years. “Collectively, the gifts tell a story, through a language of the self as mediated through both objects and others—a reflection through the warped optic of others that shows a level of accuracy beyond that of any mirror,” Horn said in the show’s press release.
“Of course, by selecting and photographing the gifts, and presenting them in the formal language I developed, I am also crafting a self-portrait with a certain level of distance,” Horn did not also say.
The press release says the identities of the givers “remains a mystery,” but nine of the gifts are artworks by folks like Tacita Dean, Matthew Barney, Jürgen Teller, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. And two of the gifts are the kitschy little cartoon figurines of the kind that filled Gonzalez-Torres’ apartment, and which he regularly shared with friends. [He also gave snapshots of the toys to friends, and now I imagine this photographic potlach as part of a practice he and Horn also shared.]
What else stands out is Horn’s sense of humor as she assembles this self-portrait, airing out friends who’ve given two copies of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, two copies of Djuna Barnes, and wtf—a photo album of owl postcards? Can you imagine giving bird pictures to Roni Horn, and they end up in a show?