Jenny Holzer

At one point during the June Residency (how is already half way through July? Didn't I just finish the laundry from that event?), Jenny Holzer's name came up as someone to possibly look at. Her large scale projections and bold use of text is powerful. (I can't quite remember why it was discussed in relation to my work though. Perhaps it was because I mentioned using lights. Probably.) Anyways, I was really captivated by the images of her installations, and did a little reading up on her. I stumbled upon an article on the blog Aesthetica, that reviewed a 2012 survey of her work in London's Sprüth Magers. The author, Karla Evans, makes a point half way through that I think is very relevant to the current art world. She was surprised by the smaller works included in the show and says:

      "The initial disappointment, which although very quickly faded, nonetheless asks the question, 
      what do we expect from successful modern artists? And, are we only in it for the awe-inspiring 
      and the epic? The recent London exhibitions that have provoked queues and great hype are 
      undeniably bold; Damien Hirst’s gilded butterflies and severed cow’s head; Lucien Freud’s 
      thickly layered and uninhibited portraits. When it comes to modern artists, do we yearn for 
      them to be extrovert and when they’re not, see them as unaccomplished?"

I find myself asking similar questions when looking at my own work. I am awed in a sense, by work like Holzer's, that can make a point so strongly. At the same time, I know that's not a place I can take my art. Not because it's not allowed, but because it would be conforming to what's in style, or rather, to a style I have no personal motivation to conform to. It would be insincere. In order for art to stand the test of time, it can't be trendy. The problem with work that relies on shock value is that is like a surprise attack: once the surprise has been made known, it looses its advantage. Perhaps I'm holding to an archaic convention when I think that in order for art to survive its inception, it should offer the viewer a new perspective each time it it visited.

Holzer's work does that. When Evans continues to write about Holzer's older work in the eighties, she comments on how it is still able to make an impact, decades after its creation. To me, that is a significant signifier of quality.