She spoke through others to make herself heard – a conversation with Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger

She spoke through others to make herself heard –

a conversation with Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger Thesis MA Artistic Matters (track Polis) Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design.

Sam Jansen 30-04-2020

Acknowledgments

This thesis is written as completion to the master Artistic Matters (track Polis), at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design.

Many thanks to Karin, Eric, Ton, Alicja and Guido for their invaluable insights and opinions – both those I agreed and disagreed with. At the beginning of this Master, I was asked: what is your position? To be fair, I can’t provide a definitive response, but I learnt that through debating, through agreeing and disagreeing, I am able to tentatively outline my position.

*A writer is just a different type of artist*

27-02-2020 - Sam Jansen

She spoke through others to make herself heard, – a conversation with Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger

She spoke through others to make herself heard – a conversation with Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger In the 70s and 80s in New York, the non-art spaces and the city itself served as a platform to showcase art, architecture, and design and connect them all together. By including previously unexplored mass media such as billboards, posters, signage, and other forms of advertisement, the artists were able to bring their work to the streets and reach the audience extending beyond the traditional museum- or gallery-goers. The artists used these media to confront the passers-by with topics, such as feminism, politics, violence, or racism. It was around that time that two artists, Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, developed their cutting-edge works, challenging the dominant discourses on sexuality, power, and consumerism.

With their shocking and surprising messages, Kruger and Holzer are two of the most influential artists of our time.

They have been marking the cities with their text since the 70s; Holzer postering her works throughout New York and Kruger displaying hers on billboards in the city.

Most strikingly, even after four decades, their early works have proven relevant to this day.

I became interested in them when researching the subject of artists working with language and exploring the relationship between content and form. Their works are very close to my interests because they raise the questions about authorship, appropriation, and interdisciplinarity that I have also been facing. Other aspects of their practices I can relate to are their ‘graphic approach’ to working with text and the appropriation of the aesthetics and media of advertisements. Besides that, I share the same interest in the use of language. The question is then, do I relate to the context of artists that use text and language as a medium as well as the aesthetics of media, just as Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, or do I want to contribute something new with my works?

For my thesis, I chose the format of a fictive interview, or rather a conversation, because it feels close to my practice. In my work, I often deal with other people’s statements and translate them into slogans, messages, and one-liners. Another source of inspiration has been The inverted interview #3 between art-historian and curator Lars Bang Larsen and visual artist Andrea Büttner, in which the curator and the artist switched roles. To construct this conversation, I combined my own reflection with the artists’ statements appropriated from different sources, such as interviews, articles, books, journals, and catalogs. *In the process of writing the thesis, I kept a diary with notes, reflections, and thoughts, which I used to ‘digest’ the theory I read and translate it to personal definitions.* This source turned out to be very helpful in constructing the interview. The text is structured in three parts, each of them addressing a specific aspect of the two artists’ practices set in relation to mine. Part one focuses on interdisciplinarity and working between the fields, part two – on the relationship between the content, form, and context (with the particular focus on the use of advertising media and public space), and part three – on appropriation, anonymity, and authorship.

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crossing paths until they finally get it right, PART 1: Interdisciplinarity and working between the fields.

I met Barbara and Jenny in my studio in Maastricht. As we enter, their attention is drawn by my various works and tryouts covering the walls. Amongst them is one of my text: *beautiful writing on a subject of little or no importance related to fancy and flowery words used by poets i spend way too many hours inside my head it’s uncomfortable because you’ve never done it before gut feeling, a place into which you can disappear, a hiding place i am not a troublemaker the capability to know what not to say in a certain social situation to swim upstream, someone who pretends to smile the colors you see when you rub your eyes water does not gravitate on any part of itself beneath it *

SJ: Barbara and Jenny, thank you for agreeing to participate in this talk.

I want to start by briefly introducing myself and my practice – maybe in a bit evasive way... I like to hide in my digital studio, most of the time behind my laptop.

Whenever I go outside, I prefer to listen rather than to speak. Still, language and words are a returning motif in my works, which can sometimes be very outspoken.

*i am impossible to find, i like to hide* *i need to listen, otherwise i can’t hear*

SJ: I would like to first ask about your positions concerning the fields of graphic design and visual arts.

Both of you have a background in either graphic design or editorial work. At the early stages of your careers, you often have been labeled exchangeably as artists, editors, or designers. I can relate to that because before taking a step into the world of visual arts I too graduated as a graphic designer. Being educated to create corporate identities, I did not experience creative freedom. The first rule I was taught during my Bachelor in Communication was: it is not about what you want, it is about what your client wants.

Still, I felt a kind of pressure to be ‘original’, to search for autonomy, rather than only proceed with an authentic graphic signature.

I believe that the great thing about the graphic designer is that we can be an autonomous artist, but next to that also is a media/advertising/communication strategist.

Barbara, you have worked as a graphic designer for several magazines before starting your career as a visual artist. This experience had to play a determining role in your artistic practice today. After you left Mademoiselle magazine, did you know how to position yourself as a visual artist? Could you share your experiences from that time?

BK: [nice to meet you] My job as a designer morphed into my work as an artist with big differences on the level of meaning. 1) When I started at the magazine, it was a job, I didn’t know if I wanted to be an artist or not. ...I didn’t know anything, I had no college degree. I was drawn to art as a way to objectify the world, which is a large part of what artists have to do in order to function at all. 2) .. I remember going into a gallery ... I just didn’t get it. Now that I’ve been educated in conceptual art, I understand it.

I think the difference was that my photo work with words comes full-on from my job as a magazine designer, not informed by the art world at all. That was the shock when I first showed it. They were bigger; they were one of a kind.

3)

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SJ: That happened to me as well at the beginning of this master’s. Initially, there was this idea in my mind that forced me to choose between the two ‘opposing camps’ of applied- and autonomous arts. With time, I have moved away from this binary perspective to develop ‘graphic art’ as a hybrid practice within the contemporary art field. But I still remember how difficult it was to enter this ‘other world’, the art world. I can imagine it was even more so in your case.

BK: [uplifted into a question] I was totally intimidated by the art world. I really didn’t know the terrain; I didn’t know what was hot and what was not. Of course, everyone hopes for recognition in their field. It just took me a while to figure out what my field was. 4)

*regime of the perceptible, on this playground you need to be strong*

SJ: I think it’s particularly difficult because of how undefined the borders of these two fields have always been. The relationship between graphic design and visual art was always complicated... Steven Heller, a well known graphic design critic, remarked that the graphic designers in the early 20th century were “artists who led rather than followed existing ideas of rightness.” It had to do with the fact that the art movements of that time, like Constructivism, Futurism, or Dada, operated with “the anarchic type and layout of manifestos in various esoteric and commercial media.” 5) However, the second part of the 20th brought a shift in the attitude towards graphic design. In the 60s, around the time you quit your job at Mademoiselle, graphic design became an “integral part of public relations, corporate identities and branding of companies.” 6) This led to discussions on whether it can still be classified as art. One of the most influential designers of that time, Wim Crouwel, stated in 1974 that “the essence of graphic design consisted of the visualisation of information... conveyed at its best.”

7) Finally, today, designers again “claim a role as author,” states Dutch art theoretician and critic Camiel van Winkel.

According to him, it has to do with graphic designers in the 90’s, who started to claim greater responsibility and working parallel to visual artists. Speaking from my own and my peers’ experience, the young contemporary designers are more and more often in search of autonomy, of their own aesthetic signature. 8) Barbara, in your work, you had to overcome certain old dogmas concerning the categories of art and design. You took the conventional ‘rules’ of (commercial) graphic design and applied them in fine arts. What is your opinion on this debate? Where do you position yourself? 9)

BK: I aim for the contaminants of categories to loosen, allowing for a kind of grazing “a mixing and matching of activities and mediums.” 10) Although my artwork was heavily informed by my design work on a formal and visual level, as regards meaning and content the two practices parted ways. 11) I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we’re visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what’s been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context. 12) SJ: However, at the beginning of your career, you were often criticized for being “simply a graphic designer” or a “commercial designer.” 13) In my opinion, this is an overstatement. You are not a commercial designer just because you work with the aesthetics and media of advertisement. At the same time, while being criticized by some visual arts critics, your work has made a big impact on the graphic design profession, forcing designers to think outside their traditional framework. What do you think about that?

*being an artist, doesn’t make you less of a designer*

BK: [sigh] You know, it always gets me when people say that I worked in advertising. I never did. I never had that experience of selling a particular product. When you work in magazines, it’s a serial process, it’s about seriality — and so is photography. Or painting. It’s about serial productions. And it’s true with amassing an archive — a seriality of images, a seriality of texts... It’s about the multiplicity of images. 14) I think that designers have an incredibly broad creative repertoire. They solve. They create images of perfection for any number of clients. I could never do that. I’m my client. That’s the difference between an artist and a designer; it’s a client relationship.

And so, to me, it’s not a hierarchical order; it’s not like artists are better than designers, but it is a particular instrumentality, which makes for a difference. 15) SJ: To elaborate on this “client relationship” you have mentioned, maybe it also resonates with Crouwel’s idea that a designer should not interfere with the content of the information. So perhaps this “client relationship” was precisely the reason why I felt the need to explore what was happening outside the graphic design field. Maybe I too needed to be my own client, because of this need for expression. I believe that everything around me can trigger an idea or possibility to create an art piece, there are no limitations. Besides that, art the best way to experience how we as humans move through society.

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SJ: Do you consider yourself part of the art world today? * insecurities are loud, confidence is unheard*

BK: I’m not cut out to be a designer. There’s just no way I’m cut out to create someone else’s image of perfection as a profession. 16) But, one thing I learned working at magazines was that if you couldn’t get people to look at a page or a cover, then you were fired. It was all about how you create arresting works, and by arresting I mean stop people, even for a nano-second. 17) SJ: Barbara, we discussed the evolution of the role of a graphic designer and how the field of graphic design might have influenced you at the beginning of your career. But in the 60s and 70s, there was another important development in the creative field which we haven’t discussed, that is, conceptual art. In his book During the Exhibition the Gallery Will Be Closed, Van Winkel aligns the development of conceptual art with the evolution of graphic design.

Conceptual artists, says Van Winkel, “were the first to consider their practice in terms of information transfer”.

Especially in the chapter “Information and Visualisation: The Artist as Designer”, he shows how art and design of that time came closer together – at least theoretically. 18) Today, when we google search you, many online sources and even Wikipedia refer to you as a ‘conceptual artist’.

What was your relationship with conceptual art when it was still in its infancy?

BK: I was totally outside of the art discourse at that time. I remember going into galleries and seeing this thing called conceptual art, and I understand people’s marginalization from what the art subculture is because if you haven’t crashed the codes, and if you don’t know what it is, you feel it’s a conspiracy against your unintelligence. You feel it’s fraud. I understand that. Now that I have crashed the code, I understand and support all this work. But I know how, in many ways, it’s a closed language. My work, not so much so, and it’s not by coincidence, because I just feel I relate to that reader who doesn’t know the secret code word. 19) SJ: In comparison to mass media, what do you see as the strength of art? Your work often engages with forms of advertising. When does it stop being an advertisement and become public art?

BK: I don’t consider a division between what is, or is not commercial... It has to do with anti’s and pro’s, or whatever, and basically I feel that there are many of us who are working to make certain displacements, certain changes, who are invested in questions rather than the surety of knowledge. And I think that those are the ways that we displace that flow a little or redirect it. 20)

BK: That is the idea that most people have. And on a symbolic level, it, fortunately, is very true. But as far as my daily life goes, I feel very removed from the hustle and bustle, the rumors and innuendo, the dealing and speculation of the art world. I have a very critical relationship to the subculture, even though it has been quite cordial to me in many respects. ... I mean making art is something artists do, whether they’re painters or musicians or novelists or filmmakers. But what happens to art, especially in the art world, is stranger than fiction. In terms of auction sales, it’s no longer about an object, a piece of canvas covered with paint, or a sculpture, or a photograph.

No. We’re talking about a vessel of speculation and exchange, whose fluctuation of value is fueled by the same kind of buzz, rumor, and inflationary aspects that fuels the stock market. It’s capricious and arbitrary, but also dead serious. And my comments are not judgements. Merely observations. It’s pure anthropology to me. 21)

* i risk losing myself, in something i always wanted* *at least i was brave enough*

SJ: How about you, Jenny? I am curious why you chose the career of an artist.

JH: I wasn’t sure I was an artist, so I thought maybe I just was throwing ideas out for people to consider. That took some of the pressure off… [laughs] 22) [proceeding a] career wasn’t really the issue. [But] the decision to do art was almost an anti career move. At the time I entered the art world, careers for young artists just weren’t a reality.

23) There were not a lot of female artists at that time selling their works for a fair amount of money, the art world was relatively clean then, though, because there was little to no money to be made. Minimalism hadn’t been all that expensive, or successful in the market. Many younger artists didn’t think about selling their stuff, or developing a brand. 24) *are you done, or do you want to continue*

SJ: In the late 70s, you joined the artist collective Colab.

Together, you squatted abandoned spaces around New York and used them as exhibition spaces where young artists could show their works. In 1979, you organized the Manifesto show, together with Coleen Fitzgibbon. Over a hundred and fifty artists participated with their own manifestos about their artistic practices... Why did you decide to join Colab? Was it a rebellious move or a critique against the traditional institutes within the art world?

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JH: I wanted to find a place that could fit the collective beliefs and could operate in it as they wanted to. [Collab] wanted to appear as a real gallery, to get attention from a broader audience, but not actually be a traditional gallery.

*reading art, and the impact of it words*

SJ: So, your goal was to create a kind of alternative to commercial galleries?

BK: Speaking about these categories or labels. How would you categorize yourself, Sam? [laughs]

JH: We hated the association with “alternative spaces” because it was clear to us that most prominent alternative spaces are, in appearance, policy and social function, the children of the dominant commercial galleries in New York. To distinguish ourselves and to raise art exhibition as a political issue, we refused to show artists as singular entities. Instead, we organized artists, non-artists, a very broad range of people, to exhibit around a special social issue... 25)

SJ: [contemplating] I sometimes like to call myself a ‘manufacturer of language.’ What I mean with that is that in my work, there is a clear link to commercial design, in the sense that I ‘produce’ a lot. It has to do with the works being designed digitally but also with the reproducible nature of the media I work with, such as posters and banners. In all seriousness, however, I think we have created so many labels and categories that it is hard to categorize oneself. In the official contexts, I have been calling myself a visual artist for the last year because the notions like graphic designer, hybrid artist, graphic artist were only confusing me. ‘Visual artist’ became a perfect way out, preventing me from over-explaining what I do.

The fields of arts and design have become ever so complex and intertwined, and the three of us move fluidly between these fields, in this way, questioning labels, categories and hierarchies within society.

SJ: Was Colab successful in that respect? The institutional art world has the tendency to absorb all critical movements, just see what happened to the Institutional Critique...

JH: [laughs] Just like the alternative spaces we had set out to criticize, there we were sitting on 13th St., waiting for everyone to rush down and see our shows instead of taking the initiative ourselves of mobilizing into more public areas. We had to cease being a space and become a working group again... 26) Everyone was fighting with one another, but that said, many shows were organized in abandoned or otherwise neglected spaces. Shows with content. Shows that featured work that was delightfully and hopelessly not commercial. And that included work by people who were not artists. It functioned for a good long while, against the odds — not bad. 27)

* to get a clear reference point, a blend of form and function*

SJ: It seems that from the beginning, you had this antiestablishment attitude. This is why I was pretty surprised when I learnt that you started your career as an abstract painter…

*commitments are scary* *i have signed up for this, i am under no illusions that there will be difficulties*

SJ: But still, for someone who is against such categorizations, we spent quite some time discussing different labels, just to find out that they are no longer applicable! Maybe it is a good idea to move on from this topic to another one…

JH: ... I admired abstract painting when I was young. I wanted to be someone like Mark Rothko but couldn’t.

Somehow I wrecked because I had the strong need to deal with real world questions. So, I started writing. That led me to put real texts on my abstract pictures. That made my paintings all the worse. I wanted to convey my ideas more directly and explicitly and to be able to speak about or to certain, specific subject matter. I couldn’t find a way to do it when I was a painter… language seemed to be direct. 28)

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1. Kruger, B. (2016). Barbara Kruger: in her own words [Film].

2. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/barbara-kruger 3. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER : Just a Graphic Designer? Savannah, US: Savannah College of Art & Design, p. 3.

4. Steven, H. (1999). Barbara Kruger: artist and social critic. Back talk, pp. 344-345.

5. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER…, p.9-10 6. Winkel, C. v. (2012). During the Exhibition the Gallery Will Be Closed contemporary Art and the Paradoxes of Conceptualism. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Samenwerkende Uitgevers Vof. p.124 7. Winkel, C. v. (2012). During the Exhibition …, p.130 8. Winkel, C. v. (2012). During the Exhibition …, p.163 9. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER…, p. 5-6.

10. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER…, p.17-18.

11. Sayej, N. (2019) 10 Quotes That Prove Barbara Kruger Is A Genius. Retrieved from: https://theartgorgeous.com/10-quotes-prove-barbara-kruger-genius/ 12. Sayej, N. (2019) 10 Quotes….

13. Forster, I. (2018). Resisting Reductivism & Breaking the Bubble: An Interview with Barbara Kruger. Retrieved from: http://magazine.art21. org/2018/01/26/resisting-reductivism-breaking-the-bubble-an-interview-with-barbara-kruger/#.XoIRsZMzbjA 14. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER…, p.2) 15. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine..., 16. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine..., 17. Sayej, N. (2019) 10 Quotes….

18. Winkel, C. v. (2012). During the Exhibition …, p.113 19. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine..., 20. Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview with Barbara Kruger. Critical inquiry 17, pp. 435 21. Steven, H. (1999). Barbara Kruger …, p.344-345) 22.Holzer, J. (2012). Interview magazine: JENNY HOLZER. (K. Smith, Interviewer) 23. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO GO TO THE FUTURE PLEASE: Jenny Holzer and the End of a Century. Cambridge, US: Harvard University, p.1-2.

24. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO..., p. 1-2.

25. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO..., p. 60-61.

26. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO..., p. 60-61.

27. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer, Even, Issue 5 Fall 2016. Retrieved from:www.evenmagazine.com: http://evenmagazine.com/jenny-holzer/ 28. Miazgowicz, B. (2010). “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CONSTITUTING THE MEANING OF THINGS:” Examining Jenny Holzer’s Progressively Complex Textual Constructs. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami, p.1

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how to get the message across, PART 2: The relationship between the content, form, and context.

SJ: Jenny, I read an interview in which you were confronted with the remark that the content of your works is so explicit that the form doesn’t seem worth talking about. I don’t agree with this statement, since in the case of most of yours and Barbara’s works, the medium and the context can influence their reading of your works. In that, I agree with Marshall McLuhan’s statement the message cannot be interpreted independently from its medium. And also, from its context – I would add.

In this part of our conversation, I would like to discuss in-depth the relationship between the form, content, and context in your works.

Let’s start with you, Barbara. At the beginning of the 1980s, you started to establish your aesthetic signature, nowadays known as the Kruger Effect. This effect results from a couple of specific aesthetic choices, including your signature typeface Futura extra bold. Actually, both of you have incorporated commercial fonts that originated from magazines and newspapers into your works… *rejecting the formal aspects, that are always there* *following establishment or prescribed form*

JH: Yes, but I believe that Barbara has been more consistent in using one type, while I experimented with different editorial fonts, besides Futura, such as Times, Helvetica, Franklin Goth, and Eurostile.

BK: I got acquainted with Futura while working as a graphic designer for the fashion magazine Mademoiselle.

The font originated in 1927 and ever since has been a much-appreciated font in editorial design.

SJ: Thanks to Futura, you became known for your authoritative style, even if the authority is what’s being debated in the typography. You often set the white font against the red block, overlapping with the photographs.

This strategie reminds me of the aesthetics of Constructivist posters. I find it an interesting choice because in how you use this commercial font, it becomes recontextualized to resemble activist posters.

*i am close to vomiting*

BK: I’ve done pieces that don’t have Futura. Actually, when I need type that has to be set very tightly I always use Helvetica Extra Bold caps because it sets tighter than Futura. It cuts through the grease. That’s why I like it. I don’t like to talk about my influences, but certainly they include 30 years of New York tabloid newspapers… 1) SJ: I prefer to use Helvetica too, but I have a love-hate relationship with it. One the one hand, we cannot ignore its significance for the history of design and the fact that, even though it is over seven decades old, it is still very ‘contemporary’ and commonly used. On the other hand, it is the most popular typeface amongst graphic designers, which makes it safe and not very radical.

In my own practice, I do not feel the need to design my own typeface because I want to claim the role of the author, not of the designer. I prefer to work with Helvetica because there is a supposed neutrality to it, which I consciously exploit. Besides the cliched font, I also work with a cliched design. I often operate with the aesthetics of design-underconstruction, incorporating different functions – and malfunctions – of the design programs into my work.

This effect is achieved through the use of default color swatches, the inclusion of grids, selections, and layers in the final work… It is all a game of exposing hidden layers, digitally but also ‘analogue’. Looking at the textual aspect of my work, the only thing that is connecting these selected fragments is my interest in drawing connections between them, even if – or maybe precisely because – they are incidental. These assemblages can convey poetic meanings that can resonate with the audience that is not necessarily interested in my personal thoughts.

But enough about me, I would like to know more about your working process. Is the text written in separation from the imagery or in a direct connection with it?

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BK: [I] sort of a mix and match. I have a repertoire, an archive, as they say today, of images. [Hunting] and gathering from Magazines... 2) When I first started making series of works, they were done as paste-ups similar to what I would do at the magazine. Sometimes I knew I wanted to work with an image, or I had an idea in my mind, or sometimes I was thinking of a text or idea in my head and tried to work out what a good combination would be.

3) And basically, the most important thing, is that in order for these images and words to do their work they have to catch the eye of the spectator. And one does what one can to make that moment possible. 4) I would rather say that I work circularly, that is around certain ideational bases, motifs and representations. To fix myself, by declaring a single methodology or recipe, would really undermine a production that prefers to play around with answers, assumptions and categorizations. 5) SJ: I have to say, both of you tackle heavy topics such as feminism, violence, and politics. I, personally, haven’t yet felt the need to address these topics directly through my work, but I do not exclude them either. I agree that you need to be aware of what is happening around you and make sure your work resonates with it. What topics would you say interest you the most, Barbara?

*the central point is not an image*

BK: I am interested in how the notions of power, money and sexuality are played out in the spectacles and secret of everyday life. The work Your body is a battleground from 1989 is a perfect example of me trying to play with the boundaries of who controls public space. The work engages in the discussion on the pro-life movement in the United States. My position on that subject is that it is women’s right to choose for themselves. I made many works, edging on activism, about the discourse on pro-life: Pro-life for the unborn, pro-death for the born, 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men, 100% of them will never get pregnant.

But with Your body is a battleground, I really tested the boundaries of public space by actually placing the work on a billboard next to a pro-life organization’s billboard.

*feminist, not activist*

SJ: [nods enthusiastically in agreement] This example shows how language-based works can become even more capturing when language is displayed in an uncommon setting. Which brings me to this question, both of you use direct language and employ the aesthetics of advertisements in your works. Why do you decide to use these devices?

JH: I am happy when my material is mixed with advertisements or pronouncements of some sort or another.

That lends a certain weight to my things, makes them part of real life. It also creates some very funny juxtapositions.

6) BK: [I use] the aesthetic of advertising design as a device to get people to look at the picture, and then to displace the conventional meaning that that image usually carried with perhaps a number of different readings. 7) I think what I’m trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience. 8) SJ: Barbara, I believe your billboard We don’t need another hero from 1987 is a perfect example of this.

When it was installed in California, it was sponsored by one of the big advertising companies. At the bottom of the billboard, it said “A Foster and Kleiser Public Service Message’’, which was ironic because the implicitly feminist statement of the poster most certainly clashed with the corporate culture of Foster and Kleiser – a firm mostly run by men. Was that billboard intended as a plea to reconsider hierarchies within corporations?

BK: [glitter in the eyes] I was so happy that it was there, because it in fact puts these words in the mouths of this corporate group which I think is great! To see that sort of enterprise saying “we don’t need another hero” is terrific! I wish that they would practice what they preach. 9) SJ: Do you think that advertising can be considered competition or a threat to art, and because of this, it makes art harder to stand out in the public sphere?

BK: [laughs] It’s always been so clever and smart. When you go to London, for instance, advertising has always had a really elevated place in culture, much more so than in the USA, and things are even whittier there. Most advertising is schlock here, but a lot of it is witty and great, and I admire it tremendously. 10)

*collecting thoughts of non-advertisements, it can be used to explore the agency of images, and their entanglement with the material world*

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SJ: Next to the advertising aesthetics, both of you appropriated the cheap and efficient techniques of commercial printing: you, Barbara, using screen printing for your photographs and vinyl stickers and Jenny – offset printing for her Truisms. I often work with an offset printer too. It is such an inconvenient device, but it works for me. I copy over and over onto the same page and use the printer’s malfunctions or paper that got stuck in the printer.

Another similarity I see between our practices is the specific medium the three of us have used quite often: the poster. Graphic designer Armin Vit stated that the poster is “a utilitarian device for conveying information, a provocative voice for calling to action, or a seductive lure for selecting a specific product or service.” 11) This statement shows the versatility of the poster – how and why did you work with this particular medium? [both laugh] JH: [I used] the poster as a form of public address, to encourage communal recognition. The poster undoes all arguments which are eternal or undeniable. The posters were shown at places where other posters normally go.

Supported by their simple aesthetic, I hoped that passerby would notice them, so I put them at places where the people could read them. I chose this format because I got inspired by posters of punk bands in Manhattan. 12) It was a cheap format, that communicates people to move to a specific place and time.

SJ: Another thing that interests me about your guerilla practice of postering is that there is no documentation of you physically putting up the posters in the city. No citizen has ever witnessed you doing it. So we can assume that you put up the posters under cover of darkness?

JH: I put up the Truisms posters at night, because posting was illegal. And I wanted, needed the work to be anonymous. Therefore the posting had to take place at night. The individual Truisms had to be short and accessible because they were for the street. Complexity was there courtesy of hundreds of Truisms representing conflicting beliefs. 13)

*it is a dangerous idea, showing what i am capable of, without permission or approval*

SJ: It adds another layer of meaning to the work because the activity of postering also becomes important. During the 70s and 80s, New York had to deal with great poverty, drug abuse, assault, and (sexual) violence. Putting up your posters at night seemed to be a dangerous activity, where you put your own safety at risk.

JH: When I lived there, it was a very, very different SoHo. It was rough. Creeping into the 80s, when Reagan came in, and the numbers of homeless people escalated—I was living on the Lower East Side by then—there were families, mothers and little kids, sleeping on benches in the subways. Not nice. Hideous. Winter. Bundled-up kids on the subway platform. 14)

*pros and cons of a solo life, or communal life, we work for a public*

SJ: Barbara, if we compare Jenny’s methods of using the poster to yours, you tend to use it in a different context.

Your posters are always clean, framed, and often exhibited at art institutions, much like paintings. While Jenny aimed to grab the attention of a broad audience, your audience is more selective. Both of you have a different approach towards the same medium, which is interesting because it shows how the context can affect the meaning of the works.

BK: How about you, Sam? You mentioned you also employ the medium of the poster in your work...

SJ: Indeed, the poster returns often in my work. To me, the poster is a powerful medium because of its persuasive character. Besides that, it is fast, cheap, and offers many printing options. It can be a reproducible as well as a unique piece. *hit you in the eye*

BK: Could you tell us about a poster work of yours?

SJ: My work CMYK is a series of riso-posters that plays with the familiar forms of graphic design. The pieces incorporate cliched CMYK colors, standard fonts, and the format of a poster, but they are not posters. In this way, I want to question “when a work becomes autonomous” and whether the form can be separated from the content. To give you an example of a particular piece, the line “design is aesthetic, art is beautiful” is something I wrote myself, expressing my confusion about what we find ‘beautiful’ in visual arts. The sentences beneath are dictionary definitions of ‘beauty’ in art. I like to experiment with the medium’s relationship with its context and turn it ‘the other way around’, for example, by displaying a ‘poster wall’ in a white cube setting or framing a banner in a clean frame and placing it outside, in public space.

16

SJ: But to go back to you Jenny, let’s speak about the two probably most famous series of your poster works: Truisms and Inflammatory Essays, from the late 1970s. It was around that time that Reagan launched his campaign with the famous slogan, now appropriated by Trump, “Let’s Make America Great Again”... Both Truisms and Inflammatory Essays were inspired by the political climate, and they are a kind of play on political ‘lingo’. Despite that, there are two very different works – especially in terms of how they use language. Let’s focus for a moment on Truisms...

JH: The Truisms are fragments of ideological positions distilled into political slogans. 15) [I prefer] to explain them as “not a reaction, but a translation”, all individual, short and meant for the street. 16) [The Truisms] were written when I was studying at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. While studying at the university, I had to digest heavy texts on political theory. In order to understand the text, I started to rephrase these texts into one-liners as a self-help maneuver. 17)

*understanding fundamental elements and principles of language*

SJ: So you tried to translate complex theories into simple language? This reminds me a lot of my own way of working. My texts are also fragments of thoughts and conversations, transformed into short sentences, oneliners... Through playing with the meaning, linguistic structures, and definitions of words, I try to make sense of what is happening around me. I need to get my hands dirty, to become involved in something dishonest is an example of how I approach a text. The sentence is constructed in two parts. The first line, “I need to get my hands dirty” is something I was told during a studio visit. It was a weird thing to hear because I felt that my hands did not have to be dirty to be an artist. So I looked up the definition of the phrase “to get your hands dirty.”

Besides the literal meaning, I found out that it meant “to be involved in something dishonest.” This discovery resulted in juxtaposing these two lines in one work. On some level, they are the same, and yet their meanings contradict each other.

But Jenny, back to your work... Visually, the Truisms were always shown in a series and never as a single piece. Could you say something more about the decisions behind their appearance, their format and the context in which they were placed?

JH: [uplifted into a question] The execution was simple, involving a basic font and list-like format and in an alphabetical arrangement. The texts would grab attention often because they were placed alongside other advertisements, only the work was not selling a product but was advertising ideas. 18) I knew the Truisms weren’t poetry, so they shouldn’t go into a little book, and I knew they weren’t a novel, so they didn’t need to go in a big book. I had to think of a form that was appropriate for them. After I halfway became convinced that they were legitimate, I realized that they had to go outside. They were useless as a list on a desk. I hoped that people would get something from reading them on the street. 19) *isolates each form, from itself around it* *i choose what i want to see*

SJ: Truisms is definitely a political work, but it is difficult to sense what your own position is... For example, you can interpret the sentences “raise boys and girls the same way’’ to represent the Left, “the idea of a revolution is an adolescent fantasy’’ to represent the Right. 20) The statements you make clash with each other, just as the photos clash with text in Barbara’s works. Where does this ambiguity come from?

JH: I wanted to highlight those thoughts and topics that polarize people, but not choose sides. I was trying to represent a fairly accurate survey and not have it break down into left, right, center, or that all these opinions are equally true for their original speakers, religious versus anarchist, or what have you. The Truisms are a representative sampling of opinions. 21) [The work] presented conflict in a non-hierarchical manner and functioned as an appeal for equality within the context that holds the polarization, distinction and class division inseparable from politics. 22) SJ: The first iteration of your other series, the Inflammatory Essays, also used contrast as an artistic device. The essays were characterized by a powdery-colored background, contrasting with their brutal messages. On the level of content, tone, and register, they were very different from Truisms.

JH: The Truisms were as close as I could come to real clichés. I tried to be disciplined and make them short and unadorned. The next series, Inflammatory Essays had a strict 100-word limit, but in there, they could be mad; they could be really, really angry. I wasn’t writing a manifesto, or a cliché. Then I retreated from feeling in my writing. I wrote once, but I am better with visual things. So, if I am going to hurt and reveal myself, I would rather practice it abstractly and relatively competently. 23)

21

*this is not vanity, we are too concerned with the idea of perfection*

SJ: Jenny, at the beginning of the 80s, you moved towards larger-scale and more technologically-advanced carriers, for example, LED billboards and light projections, which you called ‘authority mediums’. 24) This up-scaling enhanced not only the outreach of the message but also the message itself. For example, by projecting your texts on buildings and letting the text blend with the architecture and the surroundings of a place... The same applies to the LED works whose ‘reading’ is much different than, say, that of the poster. Why did you decide to switch to this medium? Did it have to do with the development of communication and advertising strategies at that time?

JH: I switched with the intention to aim at a general audience, because if you want to compel them to stop, it has to be life issues, not art issues. 25) [Because] of the big scale, I knew that the passerby would stumble on the projections and allowed themselves to have a brief moment to glance up and read what was fighting for their attention amongst a flood of other posters and advertisements. One reason I’ve stayed with LEDs so long is that part of the experience is that the light and words hit the body. This might give you vertigo; it might represent that there’s always too much information and “how do I process it?” It could make you unsure of the floor; I try to use reflections to that end. Sometimes it’s about plain old reading, the way it would be if you were watching an electronic news bulletin, and other times I want the light to be a surround.

26) SJ: You used the text as a landscape and turned common public spaces into strong words through provocative artworks, turning language into a sculptural means. 27) Another interesting aspect about your transition from paper to LEDs and projections, is the difference between the legal and illegal display of works. Truisms and the Inflammatory Essays were illegally displayed into the streets, but with your projection works, I assume that you needed the authorities permission?

JH: [surprised] It was good, encouraging practice to start out illegally, because then I could realize anything I wanted to get done, to the limits of my endurance and stealth. Later I found it necessary and proper at times to be careful. 28) SJ: Barbara, you too ‘take over’ public spaces with your work, placing your universal messages on public buildings, buses, and metro stations. Would you call your work sitespecific?

BK: Of course. Everything’s site-specific. I’ve always been sort of critical of artists who go in and do a quick read of a place and then do a work with the people there. To me, that’s exploitative in the way that some photography is exploitative. Issues my work is involved in—issues of consumerism, the place of women’s bodies—when I’m in these places, I have a reading of whether they’re issues or not, of course. 29) SJ: Each space, from a more traditional gallery or museum setting to an artist-run space to a public building, has its own audience. How do you engage these different audiences in your work?

JH: Firstly, I use text as a way to engage my audience in changing the way they usually experience words. Secondly, by juxtaposing statements that are contradictory, the viewer is forced to decide what is right or what is wrong for them.

I force the viewer to agree or disagree with the statements, to trust their own judgments and make up their own minds to filter out what they believe and what they do not. And thirdly, I became more aware of the visual effects of the statements. The selection of color, medium, size, speed and space indicates that there is a relation between aesthetics and content in all of the works. It is up to the viewer to draw connections between form and content, and such connections generated are expected to differ from one viewer to another.

BK: It is always a sense of play, of combinations or possibilities. … Humor has always been a driver in my work, whether you want to call it irony, parody, commentary or even satire or just a simple gasp of the goof. I always say I try to make work about how we are to one and another. 30) It is important to realize what your audience is. When it comes to certain effectiveness if the audience puts a correct meaning onto the work, it’s hard for me to talk about specific meanings in specific works, because it creates a kind of closure that I’m really wary of.

I like people to sort of generate their own meanings. 31) To me, all my work comes out of the idea of a social relation.

And I hope that all my work – regardless of where it’s seen – is an extension of that relation. 32) I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty. I want the work to be accessible, in that I want it to draw the viewer in, to engage the viewer. But what I hope for is accessibility based on a questioning and complexity, rather than a more cleverness or literalness. I address the viewer, but I also identify with that viewer. 33) JH: I am curious about your position Sam; how do you decide on how to make your work visible and how much to tell?

26

SJ: I agree with your position. If the artist starts explaining, “this is what I meant here, and this work is meant to be read like this,” the work becomes tied to a closed reading.

There needs to be space for interpretation, and maybe then it becomes more a matter of the affect than a pure meaning.

I like to take advantage of unconventional spaces, use it to display works that people don’t expect to find there.

It causes moments of ambiguity. I share something with people and let them decide whether to pick it up or not...

JH: Sometimes, I would secretly observe the people, to see the responses of the passerby. The reason why I did this, is because I enjoy the differences that result in displaying [my] work both in public space and traditional institutes.

34) SJ: And what would you say the main difference is between displaying your work indoors, in an art institution, and outdoors, in a public space?

JH: What I gain outdoors is the surprise that a passerby has from seeing something unexpected, something with hard content. That’s lost indoors. It’s almost impossible to shock an art audience. With the outdoor work you might startle people so much that you have a prayer of changing their thinking a little bit, or even prompting them to take some kind of action... However, what you gain indoors is the chance to develop a complex presentation of a lot of ideas. The installation that you set up can be more intricate, the writing can be more complicated, the ideas can be elaborated, the emotional tone can be richer – you have more layers. 35)

*after writing these words, i doubted that i was believed earlier*

BK: I’m very fortunate that my work reproduces very well.

And because I worked at a magazine, I really do understand what it’s like to have a short attention span. I have a short attention span. So, for example, in my time-based videos, I make sure there are always places to sit. People walk in and they walk up; they come in and they sit down if a seat is available. You just try to figure out instrumentally how the work does its work and what’s the most congenial site for it. How to make it meet the viewer’s eye, you know? 38) SJ: Some would say that the sense that we derive from words is inseparable from our attitude towards the author.

Which brings me to my next topic, anonymity and authorship…

SJ: And what about you, Barbara?

BK: I don’t see them as separate spaces. I’m interested in pictures and words because they have specific powers to define who we are and who we aren’t. And those pictures and words can function in as many places as possible…

36) It’s always been interesting to me, when one image can span a number of sites and forms, small scale, reproduced in magazines or gallery. 37) SJ: [Reflects] Today, your works are more often displayed in traditional settings than in public spaces, but the subject of your work remains the same. How do you think such an institutional context affects our relationship with the audience?

JH: Within a gallery or museum I have the tendency to write more expansive writings because the audience is willing to invest more time in reading longer and complicated work. The audience that views my work within a museum has to research, decode and examine the work.

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to swim upstream, someone who pretends to smile,

water does not gravitate on any part of itself beneath it,

1. Jacobs, K. (1991). Reputations: Barbara Kruger. Eye Magazine, p. Eye no. 5 vol. 2. Retrieved from: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/barbara-kruger 2. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine. Retrieved from:https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/barbara-kruger 3. Kruger, B. (2016). Barbara Kruger: in her own words [Film]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xi9qQb2SHU) 4. Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview with Barbara Kruger. Critical inquiry 17, pp.438.

5. Bailey, B. (2010). Barbara Kruger, Untitled, 1989-90. Saint Louis, Missouri: Saint Louis University.

6. Drozdek, J. (2006). Looking to the Left: Politics in the Art of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer . International and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and image / Volume 3 , no.18.

7. Bailey, B. (2010). Barbara Kruger …, 8. Dinsdale, E. (2020). The power of Barbara Kruger’s art, in her own words. Retrieved from: www.dazeddigital.com 9. Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview ..., pp. 436 10. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine …, 11. Vit, A. (2011). Graphic Design, Referenced. A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design. Beverly, United States: Rockport Publishers Inc. 12. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO GO...., p. 23, 121-122.

13. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer, Even, Issue 5 Fall 2016. Retrieved from: http://evenmagazine.com/jenny-holzer/ 14. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer …, 15. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO GO...., p.8 16. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer …, 17. Pires, L. (2018). Truisms and Lies. Art in America, p. 26.

18. Miazgowicz, B. (2010). “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CONSTITUTING THE MEANING OF THINGS:” Examining Jenny Holzer’s Progressively Complex Textual Constructs. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami, p.9 19. Drozdek, J. (2006). Looking to …, 20. Drozdek, J. (2006). Looking to …, 21. Drozdek, J. (2006). Looking to …, 22. Breslin, D. (2013). I WANT TO GO...., p.39 23. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer …, 24. Pires, L. (2018). Truisms and Lies. Art in America, p. 26.

25. Miazgowicz, B. (2010). “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE ..., p.9-10 26. Holzer, J. (2006). An Interview with Jenny Holzer. (S. Jackson, & J. Yau, Interviewers) Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68666/an-interview-with-jenny-holzer27. Manatakis, O. 2. (2017). www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/. Retrieved from:www.dazeddigital.com 28. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer …, 29. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine …, 30. Kruger, B. (2016). Barbara Kruger: in her own..., 31.Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview ..., pp. 439 32. Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview ..., pp. 344 33. Heller. S. (1999). Barbara Kruger: artist and social critic. Back talk, pp. 345.

34. Miazgowicz, B. (2010). “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE…, p.7 35. Miazgowicz, B. (2010). “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE…, p.7 36. Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview ..., pp. 438 37. Indrisek, S. (2017). I Went to Barbara Kruger’s First-Ever Performance—and Left with a Skateboard. Retrieved from: https://www.artsy.net: https:// www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-barbara-krugers-first-ever-performance-left-skateboard 38. Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine …,

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i have something to tell you, PART 3: Appropriation, anonymity, and authorship SJ: Let’s start with the question of appropriation. I am curious about your opinion about it. Barbara, in the early stage of your artistic practice, you already worked with the integration of image and text. Initially, the works included photographs you took yourself. Later on, you shifted to images appropriated from mass media and used familiar pictures resonating with many people.

BK: The reason behind it was simply that I didn’t aim to be a photographer. 1) [Besides that] I am working with representations, with pictures, pictures we have all grown up with in some ways, pictures that have dictated our desires. 2) I always say that I’m someone who works with pictures and words, and people can take that to mean anything they like. People often use words like “appropriation” or “media art”, whatever that is. For me, they’ve used the word advertising. People don’t even make the distinction; they don’t appreciate what page design is and the seriality that goes with it, and how that informed my work. 3) SJ: Both of you tend to use the ‘meaningless words and images’ from the media and advertisement to exploit their ubiquity and accessibility and to ‘smuggle’ deeper meanings in…

BK: I think that there is an accessibility to pictures and words that we have learned to read very fluently through advertising and through the technological development of photography and film and video. Obviously. But that’s not the same as really making meanings, because film, and, well, television, really, and advertising-even though it wants to do the opposite-let’s just talk about television-it’s basically not about making meaning. It’s about dissolving meaning. To reach out and touch a very relaxed, numbedout, vegged-out viewer. Although we are always hearing about access to information, more cable stations than ever.

4)

SJ: Barbara, in your works, you seem to quite often incorporate images that represent conventional social roles and other stereotypes. How do you understand the notion of stereotype and its importance in contemporary culture?

BK: I’m interested in how identities are constructed, how stereotypes are formed, how narratives sort of congeal and become history... especially now in global culture that is simultaneously hungry for spectacle, yet seemingly shockproof. The stereotype, in fact, confers on the individual dream of a double postulation: dream of identity/dream of otherness. 5) To quote Barthes, “the stereotype exists where the body is absent.” When that embodiment, not just in a literal sense of embodiment, but when that which is embodied, or lives, is no longer there, there is a rampant sort of rushing-in of caricature and stereotype and repetition. 6) SJ: By reworking stereotypes, you expose how imprinted such imagery became in our collective consciousness…I believe your work Twelve from 2004 refers to that. It is a twelve-minutes projection with four video channels. They display two families, one white and one black, two groups of friends, and a group of art students. The dialogues are entirely scripted, using a variety of languages and dialects, and the acting is professional and persuasive. Beneath the video, you see a script, but contrary to what we would expect from it, the script clashes with the videos. The actors enact standard roles within their social groups and the script predicts a certain stereotypical pattern of behaviour … Do you want to change the way how we think of stereotypes?

BK: I would say that I am interested in sort of, in not just displacing and questioning stereotypes of course I’m interested in that, but I also think that stereotype is a very powerful form and that stereotype sort of lives and grows off of that which was true, but since the body is absent, it can no longer be proven. It becomes a trace which cannot be removed. Stereotype functions like a stain. It becomes a memory of the body on a certain level, and it’s very problematic. But I think that when we “smash” those stereotypes, we have to make sure and think hard about what we’re replacing them with and if they should be replaced. 7) SJ: [trying to think of the right words] Barbara, you have been confronted with being called an appropriation artist. Appropriation doesn’t have to be considered as a bad thing and, as we established, both of you appropriate photographs and texts... But I believe it becomes an issue when the appropriator profits from or claims the copyright of the work they are appropriating. What are you appropriating?

33

*the fear, that you are being forgotten, ignored or replaced*

BK: … Photographs, images, I have no proprietary relationship to those images at all. But what really gets me is that there are some people getting mileage out of bad versions of Jenny Holzer and me. I don’t mind it in the proprietary sense, but it just doesn’t work; it’s not doing it in the right way. So it becomes either poetic, or it doesn’t have a heart. [I] don’t call myself an appropriation artist, but a few dumb critics have. [laughs] Wouldn’t it be ironic if an appropriation artist complained she was being ripped off? 8) [The] issues around copyright and so-called intellectual property, which, for me, is a euphemism for corporate control in so many ways ... I believe in copyright.

I do. But it’s been taken to such lengths. 9) SJ: But Barbara, you have been in a battle with skater brand Supreme. There is no denying that the brand used your Kruger Effect for their corporate identity. Where do you draw the line between appropriation, authenticity, or copyright? Because Futura is also not owned by you. In 2017, you released two editions of re-designed MetroCards with the text Untitled (Questions) and Whose Values? Fifty thousand cards were spread and served as a limited edition for the Performa Biennale for a site-specific work of yours – a skate park, covered with your text. Interestingly, a few months before, Supreme released their own MetroCards, which looked very similar to your design, Barbara. So the question is then who copied who?

BK: [grimace] The work was meant as a direct address to the brand. The whole idea of streetwear being branded and corporatized is only something that’s emerged with this sort of power over the past fifteen to eighteen years...

I think it’s sort of interesting, and it’s very complicated but compelling, that my work and ideas and visuality have been drawn into so many sites of communication. 10) …

I really make my work about those kinds of moments. I tried to reply on that level in three sentences, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Supreme quote ‘ripping me,’ unquote. They’ve been doing that forever. I don’t care! 11) But what a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers.

12)

SJ: I find it really radical. I mean, in the Biennale work, one text says Who owns what. Meanwhile, you are occupying a space of Supreme’s subculture…

BK: I am not a cynical person at all, and when I did the work ‘I shop therefore I am’, it didn’t say ‘you shop there for you are’, I included myself in that. We are all part of that. 13) SJ: Jenny and Barbara, both of you decide not to credit your texts or imagery. When you share them in the public space, they become anonymous and open to interpretation.

This makes me really curious about your idea of the authorship. I wonder what role the theories of Roland Barthes might have played in your work. In his seminal essay, The Death of the Author, Barthes puts forward some compelling arguments about the absence of the author. He claims that by rejecting the author, one refuses to assign an ultimate meaning to the text. In this way, the meaning becomes open to different readings. It is no longer about the origin, the author’s intention, but about the destination, the multiple possible interpretations. Jenny, you decided to distribute your Truisms anonymously, and to disguise your own voice behind an anonymous, “disembodied authority.”

14) In this way you gave the control over to the work to the audience. Jenny, I am curious about your opinion on the absence of the author?

JH: I always try to make my voice unidentifiable, in Truisms and Inflammatory essays, anonymity was important, because I aimed to find a way of communication that would circumvent readers preconceptions. 15) I thought my texts would be more effective if no one knew who was writing them and why. The anonymity made me braver. 16) SJ: Barbara, I noticed that when addressing the audience, you often use direct pronouns such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘me’ and ‘we’. Besides that, you often incorporate elements of the human body, most frequently a face, hands, or eyes – the tactics are also commonly used in the world of advertising... You refer to these strategies as ‘direct address’. Could you elaborate on how it works?

BK: The engagement of the eye, through direct address, has been the motor of my practice. Whether it is an eye that is looking at you, or a text that is addressing you. There is a contrast between these two, which is the denial of the gaze, in contrast with the direct address of the text. 17) But the direct address is not meant to be questioned on personal intentions. 18)

* this is supposed to make you feel something*

35

SJ: I also noticed that in many of your works, it seems as if a female was addressing a male. Is gender address important in constructing a dialogue with your audience?

BK: My work is about the female voice, it’s expected that the male voice would try to silence the female voice when it becomes vocal and it becomes seen in pictures. 19) SJ: What about you, Jenny, do you try to short-circuit prejudices, particularly those on gender?

JH: I wouldn’t want [my voice] to be isolated as a woman’s voice, because I have found that when things are categorized, they tend to be dismissed. [I] have found it better to have no particular associations attached to ‘the voice’ for it to be perceived as true. [Yet, I do] want my voice to be heard, and yes, it is a woman’s voice. 20)

*the performance of absence*

SJ: Jenny, in the course of your practice, your address the way you address the onlooker has changed. It seems that your tone of voice has shifted from more brutal, to a more poetic tone. It’s striking when you compare you Truisms: “Murder has its sexual side” or “torture is barbaric” or “people are boring unless they are extremists” to your later projection works; “the joy of writing, the power of preserving, revenge of a mortal hand” or “I smell you on my skin” or “and only by enough, to contemplate from afar”... Has your relationship with language changed?

* you would erase it, if you could* *reduced to nothing break easily into pieces*

JH: [Jenny speaking in the language of her work] ​I retreated from feeling in my writing. I wrote once, but I am better with visual things. So, if I am going to hurt and reveal myself, I would rather practice it abstractly and relatively competently. ​21) ​... ​I thought longing should be there—hoping to understand, hoping to have more, wishing to have more time. That’s why I made the writing slow and white and floating—that seemed right for wistfulness. 2​ 2)

SJ: You once said you stopped writing yourself because you could not write as extensively or as well as you would have liked. Instead, you started to appreciate the works of “real poets.” Was that the reason why you started to work with appropriated texts?

JH: The move to appropriate writing was partly driven by this tendency towards collaboration, as well as the desire to have and to proffer so much more than I could generate by myself. It was a late epiphany but it was an epiphany.

It’s like, I can’t do all that! And I can’t do justice to it. By the time we have 30 or 40 or 50 people who are earnest and bright and aching and wise, that’s what I want to give. 23) SJ: ​I am curious how do you then claim the role of the author when the writings are appropriated. How do you manage to still make them them identifiably as your own?

*deemed to be part of someone’s identity, the work is graphically determined, i claim the role of the author* * i sign my work, i did this*

JH: Language is like everything else, wilder and more individual than credited, and I do think it possible to make personal selections, even autobiography, from others’ writing. I also like to offer almost the equivalent to encyclopedias, and that’s one reason why I’ve gone to writing by many others—so that I can provide more. What I started with—the Truisms—tried to represent “Look, here’s everything!” or a distillation of everything. I’ve tried to keep that approach going. 24) SJ: I see a connection between your political works and Barbara’s work. Although both of you do not always express your personal political beliefs explicitly, you can notice that the works include both conscious and unconscious political messages. 25) Jenny, from the early 2000s on, I believe your intentions have shifted from staying anonymous in political beliefs to a more direct way of expressing your personal opinion. But most importantly, at that time, you moved away from writing. What was your motivation towards that?

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JH: In 2001, [I made] a shift in my practice by abandoning writing and going back to painting and editing on declassified government documents from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), with the intention to investigate the power of language. My Redaction paintings are a series of works that show this power of language. The works are often rather difficult to read, the texts provoke a response or an emotion, whether it is approval, anger or resistance. It makes you feel a kind of guilt as if it was your responsibility to do something about the subjects I am addressing... I like to compose the presentation of language and to make the language spatial. I like coming at it in various ways to various ends. 26) For example, my series of Redaction Paintings is composed of edited pages of documentation from the US government, collected from the Torture Database of the American Civil Liberties Union. The document describes the inhumane treatment of people imprisoned in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay. I painted over the parts of the text, referring to specific individuals and occurrences. Sometimes leaving out one word, like ‘water board’, is enough to explain the intention of the work.

SJ: Barbara, I have this closing, and perhaps a bit provocative question for you. I wonder... what do you deem a ‘good’ or a ‘successful’ artwork?

BK: [laughs] There are lots of ways to make good work. You can throw big bucks at a project and make what some would call crap, or you can work very modestly with eloquently moving results... I mean, making art is about objectifying your experience of the world, transforming the flow of moments into something visual, or textual, or musical, whatever. Art creates a kind of commentary. 27) [But] I don’t think in those terms of “success” and “failure,” as sort of chiseled somewhere in bronze or something... I... think that my work is a series of attempts, and some make it for some people and not for others. 28) JH: Glad that we could help you, I always try to remember myself that, a positive attitude means all the difference in the world. 29) ... How do you resign yourself to something that will never be? You stop wanting just that thing. You go numb. Or you kill the agent of desire. 30)

SJ: Which again, shows your focus as an artist-editor... I see a similarity in my approach towards working with text.

In my recent works, the focus has been on the ‘editing’ of longer texts into short one-liners. This process allows me to continually find new meanings within the texts. It also provokes the tension between content and form....

Barbara, Jenny, I think it is time we wrap up our talk...

Thank you so much for this conversation! It helped me gain new insights about my own artistic practice.

Both of you prove that language and image are two sides of the same coin. You made me realize how important the choice of the right medium and context is for the work.

How being aware and smartly using the space around you can enhance your message. Also, how important it is to give your audience the freedom of their own interpretation, but at the same time, to stay playful, try to shock, and surprise them.

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15. Pires, L. (2018). Truisms and Lies …, p.26 16. Miazgowicz, B. (2010). “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CONSTITUTING THE MEANING OF THINGS:” Examining Jenny Holzer’s Progressively Complex Textual Constructs. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami. p.17 17. Kruger, B. (2016). Barbara Kruger: in her own words [Film]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xi9qQb2SHU 18. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER …, p.6 19. Andracchio, G. (2011). BARBARA KRUGER …, p.7 20. Pires, L. (2018). Truisms and Lies …, p.26 21. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer, Even, Issue 5 Fall 2016. Retrieved from:www.evenmagazine.com: http://evenmagazine.com/jenny-holzer/ 22. Holzer, J. (2006). An Interview with Jenny Holzer. (S. Jackson, & J. Yau, Interviewers) Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68666/an-interview-with-jenny-holzer23. Schwarz, G. (2019). ‘I want people to attend to the content’ – an interview with Jenny Holzer. Retrieved from: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/jenny-holzer-guggenheim-bilbao-interview/ 24. Holzer, J. (2006). An Interview with …, 25. Drozdek, J. (2006). Looking to the Left: Politics in the Art of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer . International and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and image / Volume 3 , no.18.

26. Farago, J. (2016). An interview with Jenny Holzer …, 27. Ludwig, L. (2008). True Vision: Authentic Art Journaling. Beverly, Massachusetts: Quarry Books. p.16 28. Mitchell, W. (1991). An interview with …, p. 439 29. Fahs, B. (2020). Burn It Down!: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution. London: Verso. pp. 483-488 30. Holzer, J. ((1980-82)). Living. Truisms.

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Disclaimer All statements by Kruger and Holzer annotated with a reference number, were quoted directly from the sources, as indicated in the respective endnotes.

All statements by Kruger and Holzer, which do not include a reference, have been constructed based on other sources listed in the bibliography, except for the several obvious instances when they were constructed purely for narrative effect.

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Images p5. Jenny Holzer, Manifesto Show, with Coleen Fitzgibbon and Collaborative Projects, 1979 Installation: 5 Bleecker Street, New York © 1979 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Courtesy: Jenny Holzer / Art Resource, NY p7: Sam Janssen, after writing these words..., 2020 p8: Barbara Kruger, Cover artwork for the New York Times Book Review, September 19, 1993. p11: Sam Janssen, Screenshots hidden layers, 2019-2020 p12: Sam Janssen, Screenshots hidden layers, 2019-2020 p13: Sam Janssen, Screenshots hidden layers, 2019-2020 p15: Barbara Kruger, Your body is a Battleground, 1990. Billboard project, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.

Barbara Kruger, We don’t need another hero, 1987 p17: Sam Janssen, CMYK, A0-A5 print, 2019 p18: Jenny Holzer, from Truisms (1977–79), 1978, Photostats, audio tape, posters. Installation: Franklin Furnace, New York, 1978 member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Photo: Mike Glier ©, 1978 p19: Jenny Holzer, Truisms ...., p20: Barbara Kruger, image source: Bollen, C. (2013). 2020 Interview Magazine.

Retrieved from:https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/barbara-kruger Barbara Kruger, View of “Barbara Kruger,”National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2016–17 p22: Sam Janssen, screenshots, 2019-2020 p23: Sam Janssen, Untitled, To become involved..., banner 200cmx250, 2019-2020 p24: Jenny Holzer ‘The Inflammatory Essays’, Tate Modern, 2017 Jenny Holzer,‘The Inflammatory Essays, Tate Modern, 2017 p25: Jenny Holzer- Thing Indescribable, GUGGENHEIM BILBAO, 2019 Jenny Holzer, ‘The Inflammatory Essays, Berlin, February 24 – March 19, 2017 p27: Jenny Holzer- Thing Indescribable, GUGGENHEIM BILBAO, 2019 Jenny Holzer, Marquees ...., 1993 Jenny Holzer, Marquees ...., 1993 Jenny Holzer, “Tutta la verità” (“The Whole Truth”), at the Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo, Italy, September 1, 2019. p28: Barbara Kruger. Untitled (Shopping), 2002. Installation view- Façade of Galeria Kaufhof, Frankfurt. Courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery, New York. Photo- Schirn Kunsthalle, 2002 Barbara Kruger, Eine Stadt - viele Seiten, Museum Ludwig, November 2013 p30: Sam Janssen, Untitled, Pros and cons, 2020 p31: Sam Janssen, Untitled, To swim, 2020 p34: Barbara Kruger, Twelve, 2004 Video projection with four projections, 15 min loop with 12 sequences with 12 conversations Di mensions variable Installation view 2nd floor, Kunsthaus Bregenz Photo ©- Christian Hinz © Kunsthaus Bregenz1 p36: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Skate) at Coleman Skatepark, 2017 Barbara Kruger, The drop, 2017 p37: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You thrive on mistaken identity), 1981 p39: Jenny Holzer, Xenon, 2004 p41: Jenny Holzer, Lefthand, 2007 Jenny Holzer, Waterboard, 2012 Jenny Holzer, Waterboard, 2012 Jenny Holzer, THE RENEWING, 2017