After visiting the Jenny Holzer exhibition I was amazed yet left without words. She chose War as her main source of inspiration to create her art pieces. Though a dark topic to portray through art, Holzer brought all aspects to the table by incorporating LED lights, silk screen linen paintings, and most important of all, words.
Holzer got the brilliant idea of accessing declassified US governmental documents such as transcripts, memos, emails and also death certificates. On the first floor of the exposition there is a piece called Redaction paintings. On these silk screened linen paintings we see planned out attack maps that were to be executed for the Iraqi War. The tiles of these two pieces are called Phase II- Shape the Battlespace and Phase III- Complete Regime Destruction. I believe these titles speak for themselves. To me these pieces were quite powerful through her use of bruised flesh colors and the position of the prints. I felt surrounded by death and violence.
Moving upstairs onto the second floor I felt dizzy, and uncomfortable. The brightness and speed of the LED lights made me nauseous. I believe her intention was to make the viewers feel like so. Up against two walls emerges this tall and what seems to look like a human torso entitled Thorax. As I was reading the text that continually spins at a constant speed, I understood that Holzer used a declassified historical reference to the death of a Iraqi non-combatant killed by the US army. The black sedan is used quite often making a direct link to the death of this un-named man. Another piece is very similar to this one called Ribs on the third floor. Similar to Thorax, Ribs lay flat on the ground as though penetrating though the wall and floor. The text on this one was different as it moved from the ground up. The text was about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and the condition they were in. I found it quite hard to read this piece due to that fact that many of the word were overlapping one another. They were often erased or too fast to read.
The room that really stricked me as being overpowered by negetive forces was Lustmord Tables. On this floor the viewers can find large wooden tables in the middle of the room where bones of all shapes and sizes rest flat. Some bones had metal tags, resembling ones we place on dead bodies ready for autopsy. On the tags were inscribed the cause of death, rape and murder of that particual person. These were females of all ages that were brutally perpetrated in the Yugoslavia War. Being a woman myself, I felt a particular connection to this piece. Even though these were not the actual bones of the vicims I felt like death could be smelled on that floor. On the walls you could find death cirtificates which contributed immensly to the theme of violence and death.
In the other building The Monument and For Chicago could be found. Two pieces devoted entirely for Holzer's own writing. The Monument stands on the wall, in a semi-circular position and programmed with writings; from politics to religion. I liked the fact that the room is colder than the rest of them were. It felt as though we were walking into a new universe; someone else's universe of thought. The height of ceiling contributed to feeling of intrusion and the immense feeling of us, the viewers, being tiny compared to her thoughts. For Chicago was my favorite of all the LED light pieces. Laying flat on the ground I felt this very strong tendancy to sit down and just observe the yellow lights speeding from one side of the room to the other. The ten lanes illuminates the room, making it feel warm and very welcoming.
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