8 / Writing
| Artist / Origin |
Jenny Holzer (American, b. 1950)
Region: North America
|
|---|---|
| Date |
September 26–December 31, 2008
Period: 1900 CE - 2010 CE
|
| Material | (Photograph of) light projection |
| Location | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY |
| Credit | © 2009 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY |
expert perspective
| Sylvia WolfDirector of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle |
expert perspective
Sylvia Wolf
Director of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle
“backIf we are looking at the written word in art, we have to look at both technological innovation and social, political and economic change. Dispersal of information, both pictorial and information as language, in a common form that becomes used by an artist is recycled, if you will, retrieved from society—what the words mean, and how they are used. The fact that they are taken out of context makes us: A) wonder who did this and why, and what am I supposed to make of it, and B) the conundrum that exists when you’re looking at a piece of information that has a visual form, and draws the viewer’s attention to the intent and to the artist as an author.
Jenny Holzer extracts texts from original sources and makes us think about these words and contemplate them—it’s not just the content, it’s also then the context, where you see them. And it is the form as well; you see them in a form of a commercial sign, and yet you are getting different kinds of information than what you expect in that form in that place and at that time.
One of the things that artistic experience allows is an opportunity to pause and think and reflect.”