1999

Still Water (The River Thames, for Example), August 17, 1999---Image G

American, born 1955

Roni Horn's details of the River Thames, dark and lushly printed as offset lithographs after photographs, are sprinkled with tiny numbers that refer to texts printed like footnotes beneath each image. Usually the texts refer to Horn's private thoughts, although some are quotations from sources as varied as popular song lyrics, poetry, and news stories of suicides in the Thames (a leitmotif of this print, which is part of a series). If one reads the footnotes of the series consecutively, the reiteration of texts and repeated questions and answers evoke the rhythms and surges of waves and tides.