a.k.a.

Thirty photographic portraits by Roni Horn, which she selected from private and family archives, are presented in pairs. Each photograph of her as a child or a teenager is paired with one of her as an adult. The question of the ambivalence of the self is at the core of this series of portraits titled a.k.a, which is the acronym of “also known as”. The artist's fragmented and multiple identity, and by extension that of each individual, is at play here.

Testament to Roni Horn's work on duality, a.k.a is not, however, an invitation to look for the artist's self. Indeed, according to her, “the mutable version of identity is not an aberration… the fixed version is the aberration.” The photographs from the a.k.a series are thus testament to the ephemeral nature of the self.

Expressing the mutable nature of being, Roni Horn's a.k.a photographic series was first presented by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition Dancing With Myself at the Museum Folkwang in Essen (2016).