Roni Horn: Wits' End

Pioneering artist Roni Horn explores the meanings and ambiguities of language through two series of drawings based on idioms, clichés and colloquialisms.

In the two series of drawings that comprise 'Wits’ End', Roni Horn (born 1955) takes handwritten idioms, clichés and colloquialisms as her source material. Horn asked approximately 300 people to write down five of these vernacular phrases, which were then made into individual silkscreens. In Wits’ End Sampler (2018), shown at the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, Texas, in 2018–19, the idioms are screened in a unique configuration directly on the wall; Wits End Mash (2019) consists of compositions of 75 to 350 idioms silkscreened on paper.

Wits’ End is the seventh in a series of books by Horn gathering series of works, two of which—bird (2008) and aka (2010)—were published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers.