Lars Horn > Quotes

“And I know logically, in this era of microwaves and MRI scans, of probes, keyhole surgery, and satellites, that this is some echo of a traumatic event, some old weight that presses upon my eyes. But in that small time before sleep, as the night stains its way over this ancient sky, I let my thoughts drift, consider if there might be some arrogance to dismissing previous ways of seeing.

Where did they go, all the gods and the beasts? The jackals and winged horses, sphinxes and fish, all those creatures that weighed our organs in the afterlife, fed on years ill-lived? What do they tow now, those creatures that carried the sun and the stars, drew the moon to its place in the firmament each night? In those hours, I consider whether this world really is lined in shadow—thin veil between spheres. Whether, when our bodies plunge, drag against, and fray the weave, a kind of night bleeds—dense, resinous, vast beyond means. Maybe, it is in these moments when we almost cross over, when we believe we see the other side, that we blur the boundary between the living and the dead, that we bring a supernatural darkness back with us through the gauze.”
― Lars Horn, Voice of the Fish

“Barring performance art, society tends to understand artwork as the static end product of a creative process. As terminal object, relic. As artefact. Objects to which we come in temporal reverse. I am most interested in artwork as creative process. In the dynamics that occur before, and up to, any final outcome.”
― Lars Horn

“Where did they go, all the gods and the beasts? The jackals and winged horses, sphinxes and fish, all those creatures that weighed our organs in the afterlife, fed on years ill-lived? What do they tow now, those creatures that carried the suns and the stars, drew the moon to its place in the firmament each night?”
― Lars Horn, Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay