The Future Please

Jenny Holzer

L&M Gallery, Venice, CA

September 2012

Whether you are well versed in the work of Jenny Holzer or never heard of her before, the L&M exhibition The Future Please is a “Cliff’s Notes” to the artist’s work. As it has been at least two decades since Holzer had a major exhibition in Los Angeles, it is a welcomed show. Featuring works from the last thirty years coupled with new paintings from Holzer, one is able to fully experience her use of text and language as a medium. Holzer is a master at examining social reality through sculpture and text. For this exhibition, L&M grouped four of the artist’s iconic LED light sculptures in their West Gallery.  With dim lighting and no windows the works are blinding. This retrospective highlights the artists diversity as well as her consistency in using text to respond to political, social and emotional truths, no matter how difficult the subject matter. These sculptures act as story boards, sometimes whizzing by pivotal and powerful phrases so fast, that the viewer doesn’t have time to process the significance of the statement. However, the phrases linger on your mind hours after leaving the gallery. 

The new works in this show, a collection of oil paintings the artist has dubbed The Reaction Paintings, are based on declassified United States documents. The works mirror the documents as they were released with large swaths of text redacted for presumed security and privacy reasons. The artist has decided to use bright and light colors superimposed over the missing text. In Secret 6 the bright, powerful color choices reflect those of an exposed chromatic photograph while in 6 the colors are softer and lighter. In both works and throughout, the artist continues to use text or the absence of it as the medium of her work. Alongside the paintings and with the LED installation are four of the American black granite benches from the Under the Rock series all dating from 1986.

Outside of the gallery spaces are Holzer’s latest projections as well as a collection of her earlier granite benches and wall plaques from the 1980’s. Whereas the text on the black granite benches is clear to understand, the benches in the garden are white granite and perhaps purposefully difficult to read due to the materiality. They require the viewer to pay close attention to decipher every word. Another major medium for Holzer is light projection. Her text-based projection series use architecture as the canvas and have been seen on some of the most iconic buildings throughout the world over the last 15 years. At L&M the artists presents a paired down version in two new editions. The works are gobo light projections, a new technology for the artists, but she has decided to project text from her 1970’s series Truism, further highlighting Holzer’s consistency and diversity.