A Dream Not Dreamt

This is an artist’s book—a rendering of Roni Horn’s largest show to date, “A dream dreamt in a dreaming world is not really a dream… but a dream not dreamt is,” held at HE Art Museum in Foshan, Shunde, China, in 2023. Horn directed the photo documentation published here with an eye to conveying the experiential aspects of the exhibition within the Tadao Ando-designed museum, a series of circular spaces stacked around a central spiral with daylight throughout. Woven together, in fluid and extended dialogue, are many elements of Horn’s practice—including drawing, sculpture, photo installation, monologue and artist’s books. From the two pure gold sheets of Gold Mats, Paired—for Ross and Felix, an invitation to the viewer to engage with gold’s unmediated materiality; to the ambivalence of self in the paired self-portraits of a.k.a.; and the book series “To Place,” Horn’s ongoing exploration of her experiences of identity and place in Iceland—A Dream Not Dreamt draws us as close as possible into the actual presence of her art.