Jenny Holzer PROJECTIONS by MASS MoCA

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

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,

“the gloves are coming off,” another responds, “We

as the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the MAK in

are American soldiers, heirs of a long tradition of

Vienna, and the Guggenheim Museums in New York

staying on the high ground. We need to stay there.”

and Bilbao.

The documents can be found at: http://www.aclu.org.

A large-scale exhibition of the artist’s work,

Holzer was born in 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio. She

focusing on her output from 1990 to the present, will

received a BFA in painting and printmaking from Ohio

open at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,

University in 1972 and an MFA in painting from the

in October 2008 and later will travel to the Whitney

Rhode Island School of Design in 1975. Holzer also

Museum of American Art in New York and the

attended the Whitney Independent Study Program

Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

where her reading of critical writings inspired her

Holzer received the Leone d’ Oro for her installa-

Truisms. Since 1996, Holzer has realized light projec-

tion at the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale in

tions at numerous venues including the Grand Canal

1990 and the Public Art Network Award in 2004. The

in Venice, the Spanish Steps in Rome, Rockefeller

artist lives and works in upstate New York.

Center in New York, the Reichstag in Berlin, and I.M. Pei’s Pyramide du Louvre in Paris. Her work has been exhibited extensively at international museums such

PROJECTIONS

Jenny Holzer: PROJECTIONS is supported by Sandy and Floss Frucher, Jeffrey Lynford, and Charles Passarelli of FX Productions.

(2007)

Projected texts include: (Please see signage at the gallery entrance for the current text) “Children of Our Age,” “Could Have,” “In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself,” “Parting with a View,” “The End and the Beginning,” “The Joy of Writing” and “Tortures” from View with a Grain of Sand by Wisława Szymborska, translated by Stanisław Baranczak ´ and Clare Cavanagh. © 1993 by Wisława Szymborska. English translation copyright © 1995 by Harcourt, Inc. Used/reprinted with permission of the author. “Some People” and “The Terrorist, He’s Watching” from Poems New and Collected by Wisława Szymborska, translated by Stanisław Baranczak ´ and Clare Cavanagh. © 1998 by Harcourt, Inc. Used/reprinted with permission of the author. From Women as Lovers by Elfriede Jelinek, translated by Martin Chalmers. © 1994 by Serpent’s Tail. Used/reprinted with permission of the author and Serpent’s Tail.

The Paintings [lower gallery]

Protect Protect

(2007)

Phase I…Running Start Shape the Battlespace Pewter

(2007)

Phase II…Running Start Decisive Offensive operations Violet Phase III Complete Regime Destruction Phase IV Actions Green Phase IV Operations

(2007)

Phase IV Post-Hostilities Pewter Phase II Action… Purple

(2007)

Phase III Actions Dark Purple

(2007)

Phase III – Decisive Operations Violet Phase III Operations Purple

(2007)

Force at End of Phase III (If Required) Violet Phase II – Force Laydown Pewter Phase I – Force Laydown Green

(2007)

1003V FULL FORCE – FORCE DISPOSITION Pewter

(2007)

Oil on linen Courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

The Paintings [upstairs]

Wish List / Gloves Off Pewter

(2007)

Oil on linen, 4 elements Courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

(2007)