Keeping Those Legs from Touching Each Other 1975

Rebecca Horn made this piece, Keeping Those Legs from Touching Each Other, using mixed media within a box. The work is an exploration of the body and its limitations, but there’s also a sense of humour and playfulness in the work, despite the clinical presentation. The juxtaposition of the soft, yielding material of the fabric with the harder, more rigid elements of the box and the dark, looming discs creates a push and pull dynamic. The fabric appears tightly wound, almost constrained. These materials speak to me of a bodily tension, a negotiation between freedom and restriction, something I often consider while working in my studio. The repetition of elements, the neat rows of fabric and discs, make me think of Sol LeWitt and his serial structures. But where LeWitt is cool and detached, Horn is intimate and visceral. It's like she's taken LeWitt's language and infused it with a lived, embodied experience. Ultimately, I think Horn reminds us that art is not just about ideas, but about feeling and being in the world.