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Kicking off with the UK premiere of Rebecca Horn’s latest film Glowing Core 2016, this weekend-long retrospective includes a free display of Rebecca Horn's performance film compilations and offers a unique opportunity to enjoy the artist’s feature-length movies in their intended cinematic setting. The screening programme also includes Horn's rarely seen early films, such as Berlin Exercises and the incomplete Paradise WidowÌý1975.Ìý

Rebecca Horn: Films, 1970–2016 forms part of Tate Film’s Pioneers series, a programming strand showcasing filmmakers and artists whose works have proposed new approaches to cinema. The Pioneers series anchors Tate Film’s Cinema Programme, presenting seminal works that challenge the boundaries between different traditions of film and art practice. 

Arguably the first artist-turned-feature-filmmaker of the postwar generation, Rebecca Horn (born 1944, Germany) began her film career by filming her intimate performances with prosthetic props. Her early film scripts evolved from the poetic writings she developed alongside her activity as a sculptor. In The Gigolo (Der Eintänzer) 1978,ÌýLa Ferdinanda: Sonata for a Medici Villa (La Ferdinanda: Sonate fur Eine Medici-Villa) 1981Ìý andÌýÌýBuster’s Bedroom 1990, this interplay can be seen as her mechanical sculptures serve as actors in the film whilst actors play their roles like dysfunctional machines. Horn's surreal and tragicomic narratives are mostly set in confined or isolated spaces: a New York flat, a villa in the Italian countryside, a psychiatric hospital. Her later films (Moon Mirror Journey 2011, Glowing Core 2016) take the form of evocative and highly personal documentaries about her large-scale installations, bringing together kinetic sculptures and complex soundscapes.

This retrospective is presented on the heels of a ºÚÁÏÉç display of Rebecca Horn’s celebrated ‘body sculptures’, performance documentation and works on paper, closing 2 May. A modified version of this display will re-open to the public in June in ºÚÁÏÉç's new Switch House building. 

Curated by Valentina Ravaglia, Assistant Curator, Displays, with Tate Film.