Jenny Holzer - more resource points

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/holzer.html
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_65_1s.html
"I'm always trying to bring unusual content to a different audience - a non-art-world audience." -- Holzer
The piece commented on here is a 1989 installation for the Guggenheim Museum. This was a retrospective of her previous works, bringing together many statements used, both personal and political. They were projected onto a spiralling electronic board played to an 'insistent but silent' beat.

This particular piece was slightly different in that whereas her other works were inserted into public places, this was actually placed inside a museum, where, as one of the articles linked to above mentions, people are more likely to be aware of the messages the piece is trying to convey. In this way it is taken slightly out of context from her usual works.

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424325815/253/jenny-holzer-inflammatory-essays-purple.html

Nevertheless the piece is still powerful - the textual element being an important element, the presentation an accessory. Her 'Inflammatory Essays' series is much like this in that the text is the focal point - her 'truisms' invoking differing emotional responses. Here, they are placed one after the other in an essay format in a similar way to Moody's text piece. Influenced by Trotsky and Hitler amongst others, the medium is merely a way of implanting the message into the public arena.

That said, the purple background and italicised capital text has an impact in itself, almost as if you have to get up close to the words to read them properly, inviting people to look. This is, in some ways, reminiscent of some parts of early teletext with their slightly clashing, pre-Internet accepted colour schemes.


Truisms, Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla