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: <WRYTING-L@listserv.utoronto.ca>
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: <WRYTING-L@listserv.utoronto.ca>
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: <WRYTING-L@listserv.utoronto.ca>
> 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
>
