Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres have been meeting at the Bourse de commerce-Pinault Collection in Paris since the beginning of May.

A fluid and moving experience

Legends of contemporary art, Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres have redefined the exhibition medium as a fluid and moving experience that places the viewer at its heart. Sharing militant and political themes, the two artists have been meeting since the beginning of May at the Bourse de Commerce for a duo show. This unprecedented exhibition is rooted in the strength, radicalism and artistic affinities that bind two major figures in the art of our time, Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Based on four emblematic works from the Pinault Collection, shown to the French public for the first time – “Untitled” (For Stockholm) (1992) and “Untitled” (Blood) (1992) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres; Well and Truly (2009-2010) and a.k.a. (2008-2009) by Roni Horn, this exhibition highlights the principles of duplication, duality, complexity in repetition and identity at work in the respective practices of the two artists. It also retraces an artistic conversation begun in 1991 between Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, nourished until the latter’s death in 1996, and still alive today, particularly through this presentation.

Both ascetic and striking

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, like Roni Horn, both conceptual artists, invested in a radical practice, with often minimalist plastic means, contribute to redefining the medium of the exhibition as an experience involving the viewer. Their influence will be major on a whole generation of artists. Their works reflect a common approach, without concession, in the same economy of means. They also find themselves in similar political or militant themes: the question of identity, the place of minorities, the tragedy of AIDS, a form of resistance to the violence of society, to its assignments… Radical, their respective works are no less in love with poetry and open to beauty, in a way that is both ascetic and striking. This exhibition also testifies to their common and founding passion for language, writing and poetry. Thanks to the complicity of Roni Horn, this exhibition gives to see and feel for the first time in France, this commitment, this strength, these affinities.