“I’m in my fetish phase right now, and the hoofs are an embodied fixation of mine that I cannot get out of my head. I want to make that public, and I want to memorialize this fixation, in large-scale industrial material.”

Lena Henke’s two new sculptures, R.M.M. (Power Broker Purple) (2020) and R.M.M. (Organ, Organ, Organ Red) (2020), combine her interest in the natural environment with personal history. Henke, who was raised in an equestrian family in Germany, consistently employs horse motifs in her work. The oversized hoof shape morphs into the abstracted form of a crouching female body, creating a hybridic form whose size is based on Henke’s own height. These sculptures—steel and fiberglass structures suitable for both indoor and outdoor installation—are coated in soft, rubber granulate typically found on tennis courts or playgrounds.

These works will be shown in Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, curated by Brett Littman, Noguchi Museum Director.