There is one word for myself that I feel/think in regard to Jenny Holzer's work: progammatic, or programmed. There's a lifeless quality to it, in part because it takes stock phrases heavy with oppressive words, meanings, associations, and counters them with what are the stock phrases one could counter them with, or is taught to counter them with. The phrases are scripted out of one feels a mechanical method of "deconstructing" or "detourning" etc etc a given huge directive or statement. The odd thing is that the counter statement to me has the same oppressive weight as what it purports to lay bare and weaken. This is the programmatic aspect--the pieces feel like they have been run through a machine programmed with what are, if one did a statistical analysis of accepted phrases used to counter repressive words and phrases, with what are the most expected counter words and phrases. They are designed to elict the exact responses often given to them--which in themselves are also programmed with many of the same words, phrases and concepts about overturning opressive language. They are recongized by that which they know they will be recognized by. It is a closed system --just as are the closed systems it purports to subvert, transgress etc.
The Holzer pieces are designed very calculatedly to be acceptable to the academic and art-review/theory worlds and also those of grants for works in public places. Reading much of the critical work of her works, is reading exactly what the work prorammed for its own response. To say it again, it is as oppressive and closed a system as those it pretends to critique.
There is a phrase I like much: they became what they beheld
The Holzer pieces to me become what they beheld. Another form of oppression. Another vocabulary of control. If they were truly critical of things, they wouldn't be given all this space, both public and critical. They fit perfectly into the world and responses they are made for. They design their own critical responses--the language used in writing about them has already been set up to be produced by the works. Which which were themselves set up by critical/theoretical lnaguages learned in/from art history etc. The system is repeating itself to itself, hooked on its own words and counter words. Now the critical and public response become what they beheld: The carefully designed Jenny Holzer phrases. They set up carefully the staging of their critical responses and also the staging of their public appearances. It's very calculated and pushes all the right buttons--or cash register keys if I may be cynical a moment.
The works themselves, or Holzer--betray a cynicism of their own. They know exactly what to say and do to make people think they are thinking fresh and critical thoughts that reveal to them truths about the phrases they are hammered with in the evironments physical and virtual.
There is something there for everyone--the art critic, the academic, the boards of trustees, the judges in Venice, the public they are imposed upon--something which makes each one think--ah! these pieces are making me think critically! Ah--I am being told what I am being told to look for in what i am being told. Ah!--how GOOD this is!--
and at the same time there is nothing for anyone but those in power, those making money off this--
they became what they beheld. It is not populism but eiltism--an elite critique of the elite that masquerades in an elite fashion as something for the same old oppressed--the public. That the calculated cleverness of Holzer has to be recongized in an elite language of criticism and theory lifts it to the level of the high moral standards of much public works: that it is GOOD for you. How GOOD it is to be thinking these thoughts! How GOOD we are to recognize the messages of anti-messages in these pieces! How GOOD is the order of things!
Yes! How GOOD is the order of things! They became what they beheld.
Yes! they are representing our country in Venice! Yes! how GOOD we are!
>From: Lanny Quarles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: "WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: Rebus 01
>Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 21:21:39 -0700
>
>No Joel, You LIVE it...
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Joel Weishaus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 9:01 PM
>Subject: Re: Rebus 01
>
>
>>Here's a woman who represented her country in Venice as the best it
>>has to
>>offer, has had books published on her work, etc. I must not be a
>>snob. I
>>must be a super-snob! Or, maybe I just don't suffer mediocrity.
>>
>>-Joel
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Lanny Quarles" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>To: <[email protected]>
>>Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 7:49 PM
>>Subject: Re: Rebus 01
>>
>>
>>I think the flatness is intentional in Holzer. This isn't
>>"literary" work..
>>Much of it
>>involves context and as well a kind of stylisation of affect,
>>there's no
>>ostranenie,
>>of any of the tropes of modernist or pomo or language poetry, but
>>something
>>closer to a detourning of the
>>language of advertising. The superficiality of the text is its
>>ironic
>>content..
>>You have to imagine also, that there is a sort of populism at work
>>here, as
>>well
>>as an attempt to produce something akin to reverse propaganda.
>>Perhaps the work is weak. Who knows? What you must know is that
>>thousands
>>of people have seen it, and so it is something which has had a kind
>>of
>>iconic presence,
>>but which may be nothing more than a symbol of the bread and
>>circuses era of
>>american art
>>called the eighties along w/ keith haring, julian schnabel, and the
>>rest of
>>the pomo art-star coolcats
>>we all idolized in art school. But then again Joel, you might just
>>be a
>>snob... don't take that the wrong
>>way. I love snobs! :)
>>
>>lq
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Joel Weishaus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>To: <[email protected]>
>>Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 6:36 PM
>>Subject: Re: Rebus 01
>>
>>
>>>Holtzer gave a lecture at The University of New Mexico when I was
>>>a
>>curator
>>>at the Art Museum there. Frankly, I found her work superficial,
>>>with no
>>more
>>>depth of language or ideas than the Evening News. But I may be in
>>>the
>>>minority here.
>>>
>>>-Joel
>>>
>>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: "Lanny R." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>To: <[email protected]>
>>>Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 5:43 PM
>>>Subject: Re: Rebus 01
>>>
>>>
>>>I have seen a large room done by Holzer at the DMA but none of the
>>>outdoor or in situ public works. She was an inspiration when I was
>>>a 19yr old college student studying video and computer art in the
>>>80's
>>>on the Amiga at UTA in Arlington. We all liked to do little text
>>>scrolling pieces which were take-offs of her sign work.
>>>
>>>the piece itself is an essay in the material transduction of
>>>language within the domain of culture-as-code. through this
>>>kind of gesture mark is able to realize pierce's indexicality
>>>or thirdness, of language. by grounding the mechanics of
>>>referentiality within the instrumentality of code, we are able
>>>to not only grasp concretely the materiality of language but
>>>the pervasive cultural paradigms which haunt our every thought
>>>once it has become externalized and entered into the eternal
>>>circulation of images which has become capitalism's informatic
>>>schitzo-
>>>polis. I thinks its an excellent little bit of conceptual
>>>formalism.
>>>very "cleanly" cut parameters, as usual w/ mark.
>>>
>>>lq
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>considering the public spaces that holtzer's truisms occup(y)ied,
>>>>the
>>>>pop nature of these images is very rich. family dog, family photo
>>>>internet porn, video games . . .
>>>>
>>>>what's there not to get? input processed to output. an equation
>>>right?
>>>>
>>>>jUStin
>>>>
>>>>On 7/18/05, Joel Weishaus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>> > I don't get this.
>>>> > But then, I never got Jenny Holtzer either.
>>>> >
>>>> > -Joel
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > ----- Original Message -----
>>>> > From: "mwp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>> > To: <[email protected]>
>>>> > Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 3:30 PM
>>>> > Subject: Rebus 01
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Rebus 01
>>>> > 2005
>>>> >
>>>> > Words are replaced with the first image that appears in
>>>>Alltheweb's
>>>> > image search. If a word appears more than once, the next image
>>>>in
>>>the
>>>> > list is selected so that there is no repetition of images.
>>>> >
>>>> > For this initial experiment, I borrow one of Jenny Holzer's
>>>>most
>>>famous
>>>> > Truisms, to see what comes out:
>>>> >
>>>> > ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE
>>>> >
>>>> > http://www.kunst.no/bjornmag/mpphp2004/abuseofpowercomes.jpg
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > mwp
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>
>>
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