21 Spectacular, Must Visit Objects by Anna Horne & Past intertwined with present by Christina Gollan

Roll up! Roll up! Step inside and experience Anna Horne’s twenty-one spectacular objects. So, what are these objects? Are they sculpture, ornament or furniture? Was it Donald Judd, proponent of minimalist sculpture, who first used the word ‘objects’ to describe artworks? In his 1964 essay titled ‘Specific Objects’, Judd characterised a new type of ‘three dimensional’ artwork that he saw artists making that was unleashed from the traditional confines of painting and sculpture: ‘The characteristics of three dimensions are those of only a small amount of work, little compared to painting and sculpture. A few of the more general aspects may persist, such as the work’s being like an object or being specific, but other characteristics are bound to develop.’ A couple of years later, Judd’s contemporary, Robert Morris, wrote in his essay ‘Notes on Sculpture: ‘The size range of useless three-dimensional things is a continuum between the monument and the ornament. Sculpture has generally been thought of as those objects not at the polarities but falling between.’

Of course, one can’t make sculptural works today without acknowledging the various histories of sculpture: it comes with the territory. I can see in Horne’s works the influence of Eva Hesse, a pioneering post-minimalist artist who held her own in an art world largely dominated by men. Post-minimalism is an expansive and far-ranging movement that continued the minimalist interest in non-representational sculpture with an emphasis on materiality, but often with messy, chaotic processes that were left visible in the finished artwork. Post-minimalist artists often used soft, flexible and viscous materials, such as latex, rubber, felt, chicken wire and plastics; materials that drooped and sagged, as though the material’s agency outweighed the artist’s intention. To differentiate from minimalism’s concern with form and composition, these works are sometimes referred to as ‘anti-form’; or they might be labelled ‘process art’, due to the visibility of the processes in the finished forms. Like Hesse, Horne embraces the handmade in her work and the messiness of life. Horne’s practice is certainly indebted to the boundary pushing of the post-minimalists.

Horne’s practice articulates a translation and transformation of materials. The process of making is as important as the finished piece; the outcome informed by the material and processes. Of the four traditional methods of sculpting, Horne’s method is casting. She sews flexible textile moulds using fabrics that she finds or is gifted. She is not interested in replicating forms that exist in the world, but creates her moulds intuitively with a knowing nod to forms in art history and shapes that we see around us in architecture, the urban landscape and the natural environment. She looks through old photo albums from travels, taking inspiration from images and scenes that caught her eye enough to capture them as a keepsake.

Concrete is Horne’s material of choice. It is a heavy material, lumpy, weird and active when wet. The process of pouring concrete into these moulds is messy and chaotic. In the studio, Horne constructs elaborate makeshift structures to hold the moulds in place; structures that are, in themselves, interesting sculptural arrangements. The concrete takes twenty-four hours to dry, providing a window of time to manipulate and play with the forms. She lets gravity do the rest. The forgiving nature of the fabric moulds allows room for the concrete to find its own form, bulging and barely contained by the constraints of the fabric mould. The concrete expands, settling into the stitching and weave of the textile, holding its residues on the surface – the recognisable gridded texture of tarpaulin, or the playful tactility of bubble wrap. Despite the messiness of the process, the material sets hard and smooth, emerging as a resolved or ‘concrete’ (if you will allow me the pun) outcome.

21 Spectacular, Must Visit Objects features an arrangement of small forms that fit somewhere between ornaments and furniture. The exhibition is anchored by a series of bespoke steel display units, which serve as both pedestals and armatures for the objects, creating a sort of urban play landscape that invites viewers to explore and engage in a dynamic, interactive space. Tensions arise through the delicate balance of seemingly contradictory associations: functional and decorative, domestic and industrial, hard and soft, resolved or fragmentary, stable or unstable, deconstructed and reconstructed.

It is evident that Horne has enjoyed the process of making, embracing the unfinished, the loose, and the experimental. The playfulness of the artist’s studio and the creative process translates to the artworks and their arrangement within the gallery space. We could call Horne’s artworks sculptures, or ‘objects’, or indeed ‘useless three-dimensional things’. But perhaps it doesn’t matter what they are called; just visit the exhibition and experience them for yourself.

Laura Couttie

Laura Couttie is an independent writer, editor, curator and arts administrator based in Naarm. She has held various positions in the arts including Firstdraft and STATION gallery.