March 4, 2012
Jenny Holzer/Why I Should Finally Get a Tattoo For those who don’t know, Jenny Holzer works with words. She’s known for her “Truisms,” bits of wisdom often projected in public through a medium of light. They can be as simple as “Abuse of power comes as no surprise,” or “Protect me from what I want,” but her more current projections tend to be more poetic and abstract. I appreciate the Truisms like a good fortune cookie or the musings of a seasoned bus-rider. They seem to embrace this exchange of taking advice from a stranger, and the ambiguous ends of sender/receiver are not uncomfortable. But what I love about her recent projections is the added conversation about the permanence of words. Her wisdom and prose seem committed to the site. They are displayed with conviction, almost defiantly plastered across historical facades. They don’t claim to be holy, and the idea can still exist with or without the words. And once you acknowledge that the words will disappear once the projector is turned off, you are left to consider the permanence of their meaning on this site as well as the permanence of the site itself. I suggest watching “About Jenny Holzer” on Netflix and following her on the perfectly-catered medium of Twitter, and then following her fake twitter account “Jenny Holzer, Mom” because it’s a real knee-slapper.

Jenny Holzer/Why I Should Finally Get a Tattoo

For those who don’t know, Jenny Holzer works with words. She’s known for her “Truisms,” bits of wisdom often projected in public through a medium of light. They can be as simple as “Abuse of power comes as no surprise,” or “Protect me from what I want,” but her more current projections tend to be more poetic and abstract.

I appreciate the Truisms like a good fortune cookie or the musings of a seasoned bus-rider. They seem to embrace this exchange of taking advice from a stranger, and the ambiguous ends of sender/receiver are not uncomfortable. But what I love about her recent projections is the added conversation about the permanence of words. Her wisdom and prose seem committed to the site. They are displayed with conviction, almost defiantly plastered across historical facades. They don’t claim to be holy, and the idea can still exist with or without the words. And once you acknowledge that the words will disappear once the projector is turned off, you are left to consider the permanence of their meaning on this site as well as the permanence of the site itself.

I suggest watching “About Jenny Holzer” on Netflix and following her on the perfectly-catered medium of Twitter, and then following her fake twitter account “Jenny Holzer, Mom” because it’s a real knee-slapper.

11:07pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZQooawHV4d1p
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: art jenny holzer advice 
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