Jenny Holzer Truism

Printed Matter 

535 West 22nd Street

Chelsea

Through Sept. 30

In the late 1970's, Jenny Holzer saw the future, and it had writing on it. Along with language-oriented artists in a range of art mediums -- among them Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Christopher Wool -- she concluded that signage was the way to go. Ms. Holzer, in particular, favored immediate communication and broad distribution, which for her came down to blunt, pungently expressed thoughts conveyed by cheap, ubiquitous means. 

This well-done survey of her multiples and editions begins with ''Truisms,'' which were initially printed on cheap colored paper and plastered on the walls of the East Village in the late 1970's. It concludes with mini-LED displays whose phrases flow by one letter at a time, making them tedious to read. 

In between, phrases in several languages from Ms. Holzer's ''Truisms,'' ''Laments,'' ''Survival'' and ''Lustmord'' series appear on T-shirts, baseball hats, coffee cups, bumper stickers, posters and paperweights, as well as in the form of rubber stamps, tattoos (photographs of them) and small books. 

Obviously, there is a lot of recycling going on, and some fusions of language and discardable object or low-level collectable are better than others. ''Expiring for Love Is Beautiful but Stupid'' is more effective as a tattoo than on a condom. On a golf ball, ''Torture Is Barbaric'' seems practically trite, but ''Lack of Charisma Can Be Fatal'' somehow fits. ''If You're Considered Useless, No One Will Feed You Anymore'' seems perfect for a Styrofoam cup, while ''The Future Is Stupid'' might work just about anywhere, given your mood. 

Because of Printed Matter's limited square-footage and focus on published works by artists, the show omits the large LED installations and the granite benches that Ms. Holzer eventually began making, which may be for the best. Her social probing could turn hectoring and hypocritical as the production costs and scale of her art increased. 

But here, her flat, insistent sound bites mostly hit home, their compactness and unexpected locations causing that particular giddiness of recognition that only words can. They change voice effortlessly, raise consciousness on various fronts and evoke specific, often horrific situations. 

Ms. Holzer has never shied away from language's terrifying conjuring powers, sometimes to the point of melodrama, as in ''Shriek When the Pain Hits During Interrogation.'' Unfortunately, the world has caught up with her sense of apocalyptic foreboding and an imminent totalitarianism. Phrases like ''Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise,'' ''The Beginning of the War Will Be Secret'' and ''I Am Awake in the Place Where Women Die'' are all freshly pertinent, if cold comfort, in times like these. ROBERTA SMITH 

Photo: An installation view of ''Protect Me From What I Want,'' an exhibition of Jenny Holzer's multiples and editions at Printed Matter in Chelsea. (Printed Matter Inc.)

Gordon Matta-Clark Food

http://www.brokencitylab.org/blog/carol-goodden-gordon-matta-clarks-food/FOOD

Carol Goodden & Gordon Matta-Clark’s Food

Carol Goodden and Gordon Matta-Clarkopened up Food in New York in the early 1970s on the corner of Prince and Wooster. The restaurant, essentially the first in SoHo, was run by artists and served mostly artists, with the cooking itself becoming a performance of sorts. This transition of the space from a failed Puerto Rican restaurant to Food’s occupation to an alternative space that functioned as and questioned art and the potential in economic models based on something other than profit growth.

Established as a kind of “perpetual dinner party”, the restaurant as an idea was the art, alongside the actual dishes served up, the design, and the performance of cooking. Conceptually that’s important, but what’s really becomes interesting is the idea to open a place that wasn’t founded on profit, and indeed collapsed in some ways because of that. However, certainly that’s not the point.

Creating an idea with a sunset date, or with an acceptance of failure from the start, allows for a focus on the things beyond regular concerns. In the case of Food, artists stood in as guest chefs, inedible food was served, a hub of activity was created, and whether or not it succeeded, and indeed eve the tools with which one could measure the success or lack thereof, became irrelevant.

So, what if the next idea you have came along with a self-imposed sunset date? How would you work differently? What would become a priority and what would fade into the background? Tom’s recent post on the not-for-profit restaurant in Windsor, Namaste, invites similar questions and provides some encouraging answers.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also quickly mention Matta-Clark’s significant architectural interventions, again something deserving of its own post, eventually. His “building cuts” works in some ways paralleled the thinking behind an initiative like Food, in the case of these large-scale architectural works though, the question became, what if walls didn’t matter?

LAGI (Land Art Generator Initiative) is a project that shows how innovation through interdisciplinary collaboration, culture, and the expanding role of technology in art can help shape the aesthetic impact of renewable energy on our constructed and natural environments. This essay explains their solution-based social practice and energy art. I am also adding the link to their website if you are interested ;), where you can see more of their macro installations in the landscape. 

(Essay)

Public Art of the Sustainable City (2010)     

Robert Ferry & Elizabeth Monoian

LAGI Founding Co-Directors

(Blog)

http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/     

(Website)

LAGI (Lahttp://www.landartgenerator.org/project.htmlnd Art Generator Initiative)   

NEUKOM VIVARIUM BY MARK DION (2008)

"Process Art can survive for much longer."

Mark Dion calls attention to a lengthier process in Neukom Vvarium a hybrid work of sculpture, architecture, and horticultutre (=the art or practice of garden cultivation and management) installed at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. Dion removed a sixty foot long section of a fallen hemlock log from its forest ecosystem and placed it in a custom designed greenhouse, where it continuous to decay while supporting various life forms (bacteria, fungi, lichen, insects, plants).

IRISH HUNGER MEMORIAL BY BRIAN TOLLE 

installed Battery Park, NYC, 2002

This artwork focuses on the great Hunger of 1845-52, when the population of Ireland decreased from 8million to 5 million. Part of the Ireland population flee the famine emigrating to America thhrough Ellis Island, a site visible from the upper portions of the Tolle's memorial. To symbolize the suffering, the loss and the flight by many to America, Tolle replicated a chunk of the Irish countryside on a half-acre site. The plants and shrubs that are incorporated into the artwork are native County Mayo. There's even a stone cottage like those inhabited by Irish farming families during the early 1800's.

A CASE OF STUDY OF TRANSFERENCE BY XU BING 

During this performance at the Han Mo Arts Center in Beiging,China, Xu Bing created an scenario where the pigs were interacting and felt unfazed to do whatever they wanted to do.

The dynamic between the spectator and the spectacle was revealed once the audience felt in an embarrass and awkward position. Xu Bing played with the ambiance and confronted the viewer with the time, and the space. 

http://www.xubing.com/index.php/site/projects/year/1994/a_case_study_of_transference

THE PARROT BY XU BING

For this exhibition he trained parrots to communicate specific sentences to the audience.

I just though it was a great idea. 

SHIBBOLETH BY DORIS SALCEDO (2007)
Unilever commission

For this piece Salcedo and her team excavated the space bellow merging her art with the architecture of the Turbine Hall. Shibboleth as a result represented the result of a natural cataclysm, as if an earthquake or massive explosion had split apart the Turbine Hall floor. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJrQ6CCOk4c

Homemade video

A CASE OF STUDY OF TRANSFERENCE BY XU BING 

During this performance at the Han Mo Arts Center in Beiging,China, Xu Bing created an scenario where the pigs were interacting and felt unfazed to do whatever they wanted to do.

The dynamic between the spectator and the spectacle was revealed once the audience felt in an embarrass and awkward position. Xu Bing played with the ambiance and confronted the viewer with the time, and the space. 

http://www.xubing.com/index.php/site/projects/year/1994/a_case_study_of_transference

THE PARROT BY XU BING

For this exhibition he trained parrots to communicate specific sentences to the audience.

I just though it was a great idea. 

PARKCYCLE SWARM ---- N55 Collective

PARKCYCLE SWARM is a a project of modular system of bicycle gardens. It is a reevaluation of urban planning methods.

 "The PARKCYCLE SWARM is a modular system that empower persons to build an instant public park whenever and wherever they want to. The PARKCYCLE SWARM consists of a number of human powered mobile gardens. The individual gardens can be combined to form public parks. A PARKCYCLE SWARM can consist of any number of individual gardens. Areas normally used by cars like parking lots or roads in general can be reclaimed and used for non polluting peaceful social activities instead. Each vehicle has been designed to comply with local bicycle standards. The version showed in this manual fits the EU standards of bicycle design. Adaptations to local regulations in other parts of the world may be necessary and can influence the size of each individual cycle"


 

Stoneroses #5 at Riverside

http://stoneroses.tk

Stoneroses is a project initiated by Mirak Jamal and Santiago Taccetti in 2014.

Held at Grunewald, a huge forested piece of land in the southwest region of Berlin, the first iteration of Stoneroses consisted of works disseminated throughout that vicinity. #5 took place on invitation by Riverside in the surrounding of Bern.

"The question lies in visibility! She would go on to say.

There is the smell of green at one tucked slope, countered by the cursor at another incline. One may entice another.

It is potentially green anywhere, even where it doesn’t permit for growth. Man holds these credentials at the least.

A search calls for action…what are the footprints without the dirt and pebble; the scroll and stroll. A view from up above the clouds allows for better navigation, though the smell is far-reaching for any touch as such. Nevertheless, what a grand overview; block by block zones; the green pastures beneath…the city is everywhere.

How about over there.

Grounded here: it is potentially green. And the smell of the concrete curing permeates in the air…recalling the sort of gardens of childhoods. This surely is the comfort food of a collective outdoors.

No matter if the color underneath is fresh green, a checkered red-and-white, or a dubious smoky grey… Let’s not settle just yet let’s roam."

PROJECT 1049

PROJECT 1049 is a large-scale, site-specific exhibition that takes as its starting point the notion of the «Project Space» as an incubator where anything is possible: artists, curators and writers come together to develop their ideas and practices within a progressive, non-traditional atmosphere in which openness and experimentation are paramount.

Works span a wide variety of output in both form and content, and will range across the region to engage visitors in unexpected moments of engagement and reflection. In keeping with the notion of the «Project Space», artists involved have taken as central the concern to think outside of the commonplace and orthodox, in order to produce works of surprising originality that are nonetheless rooted in an investigation of an immediate place and its surrounding atmosphere, materials, and affinities — an investment in collaboration with both peers and environment in proximity.

The opening of PROJECT 1049 takes place across 29–31 July 2016, and will involve live performances at high altitude, a movie premiere, a curators’ tour, artists panel discussion, music, food, and an opening party.

Land Art Generator InitiativeLAGI

http://www.landartgenerator.org/project.html

The goal of LAGI is to accelerate the transition to post-carbon economies by providing models of renewable energy infrastructure that add value to public space, inspire, and educate—while providing equitable power to thousands of homes around the world.

Andy Goldsworthy - Rivers and Tides (documentary)

This film covers Goldsworthy's creative process, especially in regards to the passage of time and the cyclical changes of land in short and long-term scales. The film is an hour and a half long, but he speaks directly to his ideas throughout the entire film, and may bits of the movie explain his philosophies thoroughly. I especially like 26:10 - 30:46, where he talks about his concept of the "seed" and explains the ephemeral nature of his work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YneW7xksBHY&spfreload=10

How to post to this blog

Hi Class,

Here are a few guidelines for posting to our project blog.:

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