Rens Horn. Photographer.
Visual Artist. Inspirer. Traveller. Teacher.
I studied photography at the Academy of Art and Design St. Joost in Breda, The Netherlands, where I graduated in 1995. Since then I have been working as a photographer / visual artist at my own studio in Rotterdam.
I print negatives of Dutch master-photographers like Ed van der Elsken, Cas Oorthuys and Lucebert from the collection of the Netherlands Fotomuseum on gelatine silver, and I teach how to do it. Besides printing I also develop educational programs on photography and have been teaching alternative photographic processes, street-, portrait- and other kinds of photography. Not only for the museum, but also for the University of Applied Photography, The Royal Photographic Society, SKVR-Rotterdam and I teach Masterclasses in my own studio.
I lecture about my photographs and tell you all the ins and outs of their existence. I lecture about the history of photography and I lecture about the future of photography. I lecture about Dutch photography books. I lecture about the work of inspirational photographers like Robert Frank or Ed van der Elsken and I lecture about my main inspirational themes in “The Beauty of Failure” and “Typography and Writing in Photography”.
I worked on assignments for KLM, Fortis, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Museum voor Communicatie, OOR, Photofestival Leiden, OT Theater, Air France, Uitgeverij De Buitenspelers, Poetry International, Holland Harbour, MediaPartners Group, Dagblad De Pers, Stichting Boy Edgarprijs, Frankenlandgroep, Rotterdam Festivals and many more.
I travelled form the mouth of the River Amazon to the source in three months and got stuck herding sheep in the Andes. I travelled overland by public transportation in South America from “Mitad del Mundo” near Quito, south to “Fin del Mundo” near Cape Horn and returned to Quito a couple of years later to travel in the same manner north, to Calgary. I free-climbed the rough 800 meter high granite wall of the Tsaranoro in sunny Madagascar and tried to aid-climb a virgin rockface of the same height on Baffin Island in the cold Canadian arctic province of Nunavut, as an expedition photographer. I travelled with the Trans Siberian Railroad to Mongolia’s capital Ulaan Baatar and learned how to smuggle Ural-motorcycleparts by train. I drove my old Harley Davidson to Norway’s Nordkapp and cried like a child when the midsummer sun broke through the clouds at midnight. On my way south I won the Long Distance Trophy at the 10th Anniversary of Sawmill MC in Sweden. On the road I read Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet and travelled in imagination.
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Video portrait made by Kim Everdine Zeegers to accompany the exhibition
Time-Travel at De Ketelfactory in Schiedam (NL), september 28th 2019 – december 22nd 2019.
“De vrijheid van Rens Horn”
Interview in fotografie tijdschrift Focus, oktober 2019. (Link to PDF, Dutch only)
“De remmende werking van analoog”
Interview in fotografie tijdschrift Focus, december 2015. (Link to PDF, Dutch only)
