THE Q&A: MIGUEL HORN, SCULPTOR

Miguel Horn, a young American sculptor with Colombian and Venezuelan roots, has become a bright, rising star in Mexico's art scene. He moved here directly after graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, in order to train with Javier Marín, a world-renowned Mexican sculptor. Horn first asked Marín for a studio tour, and then persuaded him to offer an apprenticeship. Now, four years later, Horn's quirky and sometimes gigantic sculptures, done solo and in collaboration with Marín, can be found at galleries and on streets across Mexico City.

Horn is part of a new wave of Latin sculpture that is big, bold and expressive. His works draw from traditional colours, shapes and customs in a celebration of Latin cultures. In April his work was featured as part of Zona Maco, Latin America's Art Basel. This August, his first full solo show, at Terreno Baldío Arte in Mexico City, will feature his haunting, crumbling faces and forms (including a bronze of a man standing on his own beard, which he intends to make "really large"). Here he talks to More Intelligent Life about the art world in Mexico, local influences on his work and his desire to make "monumental" art.

More Intelligent Life: How did you get into art, and why sculpture?

Miguel Horn: My grandfather was a painter and that influenced me when I was growing up. I started out as a painter at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. But when I got to the academy I realised that the only people I clicked with were these sculptors. They were just these dudes building creative stuff in a great setting, this bare shop. I realised as a painter I would be limited, unlike sculpture where I can build and make all different types of constructions.

MIL: Why Mexico and Javier Marín's studio?

MH: By the time I left the academy, I was pretty confident as a figurative sculptor, but I didn't think I had a creative or artistic vision. So I just wanted to keep learning different parts of sculpture. My friend introduced me to Javier's work my last year, and I was doing similar things with contemporary figurative modelling. And I thought, I want to go to Mexico; I've never been there and I like making trips. So I decided to come down here and work for him, whether he wants it or not (laughs). I got a motorcycle and decided to make a trip from Philadelphia to Mexico City.

MIL: Was Javier making these huge sculptures before you joined him?

MH: No. I had previously built three life-size bronzes and had experience casting bronze, but the biggest thing I had done was probably about seven feet tall. But the construction principles are the same. You just kind of scale it up. Javier was at a point where he wanted to have someone take care of doing enlargements, so it was convenient for both of us. I think what I bring is an artistic eye to that process, so I can understand the forms he's working with figuratively. I can give him something closer to what his original idea was, rather than just mechanically scaling up the piece.

MIL: There seems to be a new wave of Mexican sculpture that's bigger and bolder.

MH: People are doing bigger stuff now because there's great support for the arts here. People look up to artists in a way that's not the same in the States. Everybody's kind of willing to give you a show; there's a lot available for you. So there's this idea that if you want to build something big, you can, because you'll find somewhere to show it or someone will be interested in seeing it. Whereas in the States, if you want to do something big, you need to have somebody propose to you a space. Here it's like, "Fuck it, let's do it. Let's do it big, let's do it how we want to do it."

MIL: Does being in Mexico encourage innovation? Are you more innovative in your personal work?

MH: Creatively, yeah. I came from a pretty stifling viewpoint ...and when I came to Mexico, and found that Javier was pretty much self-taught, that all went out the window. I started to experiment with things that before I would have questioned or not paid attention to.

MIL: What's the weirdest sculpture you've ever made?

MH: I had this idea of these sculptures ravelling and unravelling like wires. But I think I took it a little too literal. I got this plant that I kind of watched die over the course of a month because I decided that it wasn't going to make it. And I turned it upside down and started making this person made out of clay coming out of the roots and branches amid these wires. And I guess it was kind of cool but it was too literal. I thought it was so profound when I did it, I was like, "Wow, that is so crazy!" But then I was like, "Wait, how am I even going to preserve this?" I take a liberal use of art that I don't consider too important. I plan to make a light box out of those x-rays [he points to x-rays hanging on a wall in his studio of screws in his knees that were implanted after a bad bicycle accident].

MIL: Isn't sculpture the least appreciated of all the arts? Don't people flock more to paintings?

MH: I think it's the least accessible. You don't collect sculpture unless you have the space for sculpture. Most of it has to have the right setting for it to look the way it's supposed to look. It's expensive, it's cumbersome. But people like sculpture, people like things that are tangible, that you can walk around, something that creates space. I think sculpture's true nature is outdoors, in public and is monumental, which is what we have been experimenting with here.

MIL: What is your upcoming personal show in August going to feature?

MH: There is a kind of general theme, and it speaks to my experience so far in Mexico. The clash of artistic culture, what I was taught that was the absolute truth compared to my experience in the real art world.

MIL: So is it order v chaos?

MH: You can parallel freedom and chaos. Being able to surrender things that maybe you believed to be, like an ideal of beauty, a canon. People here have an aesthetic that's derived more from their cultural roots, which is heavily indigenous-influenced. They have different ways of seeing forms and figures (as opposed to the Western style). So that played itself out very drastically.

I have strongly figurative elements in my work. I cast using bronze and steel wire, which is actually what I use to make my enlargements for Javier. Most of this came out of a process where I would build the form out of this wire shell and then lay clay on top of it to work on. There's elements of corrosion and deterioration, either form integrating or disintegrating. I think what that speaks to is the deterioration of a tradition. A lot of these pieces have steel structures that look like armour or shells, but they're all rusted. There's exposed welds, a lot of things are left bare. I think that also speaks to the culture that I am living in—in Roma (his neighbourhood) some buildings are still in wreckage from the '85 earthquake and houses have facades with plaster and concrete that are broken off. I think that's beautiful, that's what I really love about Mexican culture: they're proud of what they have, their aesthetic, and they're not trying to cover it up. It's a surrender to what you have.

~ ALEXIS OKEOWO

Picture Credit: Miguel Horn