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Rebecca Horn

 Rebecca Horn

Pencil mask (Bleistiftmaske)

ART CITIES:Basel-Rebecca HornPencil Mask', Rebecca Horn, 1972 | Tate

DIMENSIONS
Object within display case: 650 × 520 × 400mm
Black box: 135 × 360 × 225mm
Framed photograph: 255 × 312 × 33mm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh9JH7daSbg

Strapped around the face, the mask transforms the wearer’s head into an instrument for drawing. Horn has described wearing it: ‘All pencils are about two inches long and produce the profile of my face in three dimensions...I move my body rhythmically from left to right in front of a white wall. The pencils make marks on the wall the image of which corresponds to the rhythm of my movements.’ The spike-like pencils make this one of Horn’s more threatening works. However, it is linked to the feather masks, as feather quills were also once used for writing.




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