ARTIST ROOMS: Jenny Holzer

Transcript

Blue Purple Tilt (2007):

Here in the Main Gallery we are showing four examples of Jenny Holzer’s work, all created in 2007.

Throughout her career, Jenny Holzer has tackled a variety of themes. Using words in various mediums, such as T-shirts, posters, and light displays, she analyses the power of language and how it shapes our cultural environment. Emotions and experiences, politics and conflict are recurring ideas in Holzer’s work.

On your left, on the far end wall of the gallery, is one of Holzer’s large light installations, Blue Purple Tilt.

Blue Purple Tilt comprises seven, vertical light emitting diode (or LED) signs, each measuring over 4 metres in height and 14 centimetres wide. They stand side by side, leaning against the far wall of the gallery. Words in blue lights run continuously up the length of the stainless steel, oblong shaped signs. The same words also run up the back of the signs, but in blue, purple, pink or red lights, casting a colourful glow on the back wall. The messages are from a selection of Jenny Holzer’s early text works, such as Truisms and Inflammatory Essays. Examples of some of the text are: “A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS     A MAN CAN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A MOTHER     CHANGE IS VALUABLE WHEN THE OPPRESSED BECOME TYRANTS   DISORGANIZATION IS A KIND OF ANESTHESIA     JUST BELIEVING SOMETHING CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN. “ 

Sometimes the words flash, making it quite uncomfortable to view, and sometimes  they run smoothly, bathed in a calming blue or pink light. The discomfort, or otherwise, produced by the lights, reflects the emotions that can be produced by the messages themselves.

By presenting her work in this fashion, the audience is as immersed in Holzer’s message as they are in the glow of the lights.

Protect Protect (2007)

If you turn 90 degrees to your right, away from Blue Purple Tilt, on the wall in front of you there is a large painting, measuring approximately 2½ metres wide by 2 metres high, titled Protect, Protect.  

Jenny Holzer became fascinated by the idea of discovering secrets, after she was asked by Wired magazine to imagine something new for the Google front page; she wanted to see a new secret for every time you logged on. This led her to the National Security Archives in the U.S. and a series of declassified material.

Protect Protect is one of a series of screen prints Holzer has made revealing former classified government information on the Iraq conflict. It is a greatly enlarged declassified, U.S military map of Iraq. Jenny Holzer obtained the map from the National Security Archives, enlarged it and silk-screen printed it using fine oil paint, onto linen, which has then been stretched over a rectangular frame. Holzer has painted the whole background purple and then printed the black and white map on top. Any areas or images on the map that were originally white, appear purple. The map identifies the military intentions in various areas of Iraq. The words ‘Protect’ are written at the top, bottom and left-hand side of the map, with ‘Suppress’, ‘Fix’, ‘Isolate’ and ‘Seize’ printed over other areas. Three large arrows, with the words ‘Exploit’ on them, point from different edges of the map into a central point, close to Baghdad. In the north of the map are the words ‘Seize North Oil’ and in the south, ‘Seize South Oil’. In the bottom left hand corner are written the words: Shock and Awe, Exploit, Gain Control. This is almost like a title for the map. In the top right-hand corner are the words:

Declassified by: RADM R.T. Moeller

Declassify on: 16 June 2005

Action Officer: Mr M.D. Fitzgerald, Civ.

The words on the map might initially look as if the artist has added them to create effect. As Holzer says, “Who would want to think they’re real?” But in fact, nothing has been altered from the original military document. Holzer’s technique is forcing us to recognise the power of words. As with all Holzer’s work, the audience is left to make up its own mind regarding the meaning of the words and images before them, her only input into the politically charged documents, being the addition of colour depending on tone.

The purple colour applied to the whole piece, reflects Jenny Holzer’s emotions about the picture. Black and white is used for facts and purple, for her, denotes ugliness.  As she says:  “If I really like a document, or if I can’t figure out what emotional qualities should attach to it, I’ll screen it in and on different colours – black on white is different from black on awful purple. I go beautiful or ugly depending on which seems appropriate. Black on white seems factual. Other documents are hazy about what happened, and I’ll go to emotional colour choices and surfaces”.

Shape the Battlespace (2007)

If you now turn another 90 degrees to your right, you will be standing in front of another, similar sized painting of a map of Iraq, called Shape the Battlespace.  It also has a purple background and the map is all black, with various towns and cities faintly marked, Baghdad being highlighted in the centre.  At random points on the map there are lighter coloured images of fighter jets, with lines shooting from them, ending in a star-like image, symbolising an explosion. At various points on the map there are other explosion symbols, presumably indicating where ground forces will attack.

In the top left hand corner are the words: Phase II – Shape the Battlespace (A – Day to A + 4) 5 days.

Large grey arrows come down from the top of the map, from the bottom and from the left. The top one has the letters US SF across it (US Special Forces) and the left one Coalition SF (Coalition Special Forces).

In the bottom left corner there is a blown up portion of the map with the words:

200 sorties & 291 TLAMS  (Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles) available, outlined in one box;  100 sorties & 421 TLAMS available, outlined in another box and 1 SR & 2 x MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) in a third box.

Each box indicates different areas on the map.

In the top right corner are the words:

Declassified by: RADM R.T. Moeller

Declassify on: 16 June 2005

Action Officer: Mr M.D. Fitzgerald, Civ.

 

If you now turn to your right and move to the wall on the right of the entrance, you will find Purpose (Yellow, White), 2007.

This work relates to statistics on the number of deaths that occurred among detainees in U.S custody.  A declassified Department of Defense (DOD) document, the main body of the text has been completely censored with the text blacked out and unavailable to the reader or viewer. Here, Holzer brings to light a document that shows the government almost incriminating itself. Semi-abstract, the content serves as stark evidence of authority’s will to silence and stifle dissent.

Purpose consists of four white panels, approximately 60 centimetres wide by 84 centimetres high, positioned close together in a row. Holzer has again enlarged the original documents and screen printed them using oil paint on linen. The first panel on the left has a black circle at the top left, covering something that has been censored. The heading at the top of the panel says: ‘Purpose’, followed by the words: ‘To clarify the number, cause of death, investigations conducted and disposition of cases of deaths occurring among detainees in US custody.’ Underneath these words is a large black square, where material has been blacked out.

The second panel has another black circle at the top left and the heading: Recommendation # 1. A black rectangle underneath is all that there is on the panel.

The third panel is a replica of the second, except that the heading says ‘Recommendation # 2.

The fourth panel is almost entirely taken up with a black rectangle. In small letters at the bottom is written DOD June and the numbers 2309.

As with the maps, Holzer is presenting the information in an artistic context, reflecting her emotions about the content, and at the same time, asking the audience to engage with the full force of the written – and unwritten – word.