Unlikely Possibility
Her concern for other artists is so generous that Horn is busily converting the large, blue-tiled buildings around her studio into a foundation. Sheltered by extensively forested hills on one side and a mountain on the other, they were all part of her family’s textile factory.
But now Horn is transforming them into “a village with a museum, an archive, a space for concerts and studios for artists in residence”. The whole visionary project, scheduled to open in 2010, promises to be of inestimable benefit to artists everywhere. Its importance, in a world affected by such an alarming economic crisis, is self-evident. And the visionary optimism behind it will be summed up by a 9-metre-high tower, converted from an old factory chimney. Horn, gesturing towards it with a sense of expectancy, says, “A beautiful blue light will be installed on top, so at night it will seem to levitate! That is why I am calling the whole complex The Moontower Foundation.”
Horn’s own approach to art proves that everything is possible. Moving with supple and resourceful ease from body-extension sculpture to drawing, film, poetry and photography, she has encouraged Handa to explore even the most unlikely possibilities in his work during the mentoring year. Yet she appreciated how hard it might be for him to break free from his native culture. Horn first visited Japan in 1978, “when I was 29, the same age as Handa is now. I did a performance which was a mixture of traditional western ballet and objects like a little round Japanese table. It was so strange for everyone there, but I like the way Handa has taken Japanese culture and transformed it. He hasn’t become western at all during the mentoring year. What I like in Japanese art is their way of seeing space, both outer and inner, how they use it for meditation in temples and create their gardens. Handa has certain traditional ideas, like his constructed flying dragons in space and a traditional wood swing in a tent – this I like because it interested me when I was in Japan. But now, the new generation over there has to destroy this and make something new.”