Jenny Holzer PROJECTIONS

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Jenny Holzer Projections Jenny Holzer’s medium is language. Since the

For MASS MoCA, Holzer uses the projectors and

late 1970s, she has presented her text-based work in

the building’s structure to create an immersive environ-

public spaces, drawing attention to forms of power

ment. With two projectors mounted on opposite walls

and control that affect our lives in ways both obvious

of the gallery and facing each other, the light floods

and barely perceptible.

the room and transforms the gallery into a meeting

The underground, interactive nature of much of

place animated by moving bodies and text. While the

her work — w hich is often exhibited outside traditional

texts systematically scroll like credits at the end of a

museum spaces and made available to a wide and

film, letters expand and contract, and words seem to

sometimes unsuspecting public — i s a vital aspect of

escape their once-determined order. Meanings shift

her practice. In her first series Truisms (1977–79),

depending on the viewer’s perspective.

Holzer circulated aphorisms (‘Abuse of Power Comes

In an adjoining gallery at the back of the projec-

as No Surprise,’ ‘Money Creates Taste’) by printing

tion space, Holzer has installed a series of “map”

them on posters and anonymously posting them

paintings of formerly classified government docu-

throughout downtown Manhattan. Distilling many

ments. Made available to the public through the

voices and ideas into digestible, contradictory state-

Freedom of Information Act, the maps were originally

ments in alphabetized lists, the works leave viewers

part of a United States Central Command PowerPoint

to determine for themselves the meaning and author-

briefing. They illustrate various planning stages and

ity of the words.

scenarios proposed prior to the invasion of Iraq. Holzer

Since the beginning of her career, Holzer has

enlarged the original documents and silkscreened

written thirteen text series. Although they address a

them in black on meticulously prepared oil-on-linen

range of issues and situations from multiple viewpoints,

grounds. The artist’s choice to embed the official

Holzer’s artwork is often political. She addresses

documents within fields of colors, ranging from purples

brutality and oppression, including violence against

to greens and grays, hints at an emotional register

women and children and the horrors of war. Created

often obscured by the otherwise bureaucratic presen-

at the height of the AIDS epidemic, her series Laments

tations of war. For more information pertaining to the

(1989) imagines the voices of the dead. The artist first

documents depicted in the paintings, please visit:

presented the texts on sarcophagi and L.E.D. (light

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv.

emitting diode) signs at the Dia Art Foundation in 1989.

In the upstairs mezzanine gallery, a four-element

(Electronic signs became central to her practice after

work titled Wish List / Gloves Off reproduces redacted

the Truisms appeared on Times Square’s Spectacolor

documents pertaining to interrogation methods. A

sign in 1982.)

captain in the US Army’s human intelligence division

Holzer has continued to integrate new communi-

had requested a “wish list” of “innovative interrogation

cation technologies into her practice. Since 1996, she

techniques that would prove more successful than

has used powerful light projectors to throw text onto

current methods.” The “wish list” depicted is a

building façades and landscapes all over the world.

summary of the “alternative” techniques that the

For PROJECTIONS, her installation in MASS MoCA’s

4th Infantry Division devised — i ncluding phone book

Building 5 gallery, Holzer brings the medium indoors.

strikes, low-voltage electrocution and muscle fatigue

The texts projected here will change throughout the

inducement. The accompanying three-page email

run of the exhibition: please visit the museum’s web

chain encapsulates an internal debate over the legiti-

page for notices of text changes.

macy of these practices. While one soldier declares,


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Jenny Holzer PROJECTIONS by MASS MoCA - Issuu