Rebecca Horn, born in Michelstadt, Germany in 1944 as daughter of a business man and textile designer began her studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts) in Hamburg in 1964. The scholarship of DAAD enabled her to stay and study in London (1971/72). At this time Rebecca Horn started creating performances with body related sculptures. All activities had the same subject in common: to extend, to enlarge or to narrow the body by applying masks, attachments and textile applications to the body of the actor. In the same way as in her first body sculpture "Arm-Extension" (1968), she researched in her performances the new experience of space, the poetical relaying of psychological states and physical limitation. Rebecca Horn's main focus is the interaction of object (or actor), viewer and environment. "There are only participants." (quoted from: Carl Haenlein; "Rebecca Horn. The Glance of Infinity", Zurich 1997, p. 49). The viewer in his external passiveness takes part in the same degree as the actor or the object (and engine) of the installation. Her sculptures became more and more independent during the years without abandoning her central issue. Lively acting sculptures emerged and marked her further oeuvre, such as the moving fan "Pfauenmaschiene" (Peacock machine, 1979/80), the electrical lightning of the "Kuss des Rhinozeros" (Kiss of the Rhinoceros, 1989) and the stories whispering "Schildkrötenseufzerbaum" (Turtle sighing tree, 1994).
The spectrum of the artistic media which Rebecca Horn used is multifaceted: besides performances, installations and kinetics, she examined the specific characteristics of drawings, photography, video and film.
Since 1989 Rebecca Horn teaches at the Berliner Hochschule. Many important single exhibitions were shown lately in major museums and galleries in England, USA, France and Germany. As early as 1972 she participated for the first time at the documenta and received the documenta price in 1986. In 1992 she was awarded the media price of the ZKM in Karlsruhe and the Kaiserring of the city of Goslar. Rebecca Horn dies in 2024 at the age of 80.