Jenny Holzer’s recent survey at the Whitney Museum had the same effect as viewing the film Samson and Delilah: it rendered me speechless.1 Somehow despite the vast distances between both experiences, in visual genre, subject matter, production values and intent, a line was crossed that made them both shockingly topical and aesthetically persuasive. To my mind, nothing else matters as much in visual practice nowadays.
‘Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT’ was the artist’s most comprehensive show in the United States for more than fifteen years. I made the pilgrimage to Manhattan at Easter to see Alexandra Munroe’s The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860-1989 at the Guggenheim. Disappointed at its ‘academic’ and unapproachable exhibition display on the subject, I left with the catalogue (hardly an accompaniment to the project; more like the main-game). Holzer was altogether different. An immersive and absorbing show it was organised by Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in partnership with the Fondation Beyeler, Basel.
As is well know, the artist’s text installations, which have grown in size and ambition over the years, are frequently played out in non-art sites as well as orthodox display venues. They are a testament to Holzer’s commitment to direct public engagement on issues of social and cultural importance. I still have a sheet of her Truisms from 1977, picked up free around that time from the Printed Matter store in SoHo: ‘Abuse of power should come as no surprise/ Alienation can produce eccentrics or revolutionaries/ An elite is inevitable/ Anger or hate can be a useful motivation force/’ and so forth. For this touring show, the Truisms have been integrated into a new floor-based work using the artist’s