Bee's Planetary Map

Bee's Planetary Map, 1998.

This piece is my favorite of Horn's, it really makes me think alot more then other works of art i have been exposed to this quarter. For me it really hits home and pulls a string in my heart unlike any other art before.

A good description of this artwork is "sixteen inverted straw baskets, looking for all the world like beehives, were suspended from the ceiling at various heights. Inside each basket was a light bulb, casting pools of light on the floor. On the floor beneath each basket was a circular glass mirror which now and then swiveled, catching the light and reflecting it in constantly moving circles and oblongs on the walls and ceiling. Throughout the room you could hear a recording of the insistent buzzing of a swarm of bees. Topping it all off, every few minutes a small rock attached to a cable fell from the ceiling to hit a cracked mirror on the floor, around which were strewn pieces of broken glass. This repetitive, destructive act was disturbing but also raw and cathartic. On one wall could be found a poem by Horn, providing an excellent textual counterpoint: «The bees have lost their equilibrium / They swarm in dense clouds high above / Their luminous basket hives are deserted / One of their centres is being destroyed forever anew....»" (findarticles.com)

"At their best (and this installation was a good example), Horn's works are dramatic and theatrical but also poetically engaging, in a way that gets to you on numerous levels simultaneously. Here, the notion of bees loosed from their hives to permanently wander unseen evoked ideas of dislocation, rootlessness and nomadism--perhaps a subtle reference to current crises in places like Kosovo. At the same time the installation had a dreamlike, mythic quality suggestive of primal fears and longings: the desire for safety and order, or the desire for unencumbered release." (findarticles.com)

I chose the quote above because i think the translation it brings out of this artwork is beautiful and lovely. The only problem is when i look at just the picture i can't get the full effect and i find it hard to get that translation myself, i simply see beehives in a room with a bunch of light reflecting off of all the walls. But after hearing the description of everything going on i can see how they compare it to something of chaos because of all the lights bouncing and glass breaking, but when you just look at a picture of it you don't get that effect.

I honestly don't know another artwork to compare this piece to but i do have something to compare it to. My life, is like this room with all the lights bouncing off the walls and floors it reminds me of all the good and bad memories i have in my life that bounce around in my head. And all the breaking glass reminds me of all the hard times i have had to break my way through to make it where i am today. And the quote on the wall all too well describes me and my families relationship, it has been thrown out of equilibrium, cloudy and destroyed.