A Distinction between a Text and an Image - Research Paper Example

? “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art” Sol Lewitt Jenny Holzer Is there a difference, a distinction between a text and an image? Both the text and the image are used to express something, sometimes they express many things. Both of them are received through our eyes. Both of them can make a work of art. Modern life is too fussy, too quick, too active and this directly affects modern art. People today are too busy to stand before a work of art within hours trying to catch the artist’s conceptual approach and message. Modern viewer wants to come, to see and to grasp the idea at once. Perhaps, due to these features of our contemporary life art responds with new techniques more suitable for perceiving by contemporary people. One of these techniques is test-as-image. Long before, Jasper Johns placed familiar images and stenciled words on equal footing thus giving birth to a new direction in art. To introduce art and text I have chosen Jenny Holzer, who, among modern artists, perhaps more than anyone, has restricted contemporary art to text. For more than 30 years this conceptual artist has been creating the relationship between didactic text and image. In her works she manages to reflect the bitter realities of our everyday life so strongly and vividly that her messages are clear for everyone despite of education, level of cultural development and view of life. In the late 70s she filled the streets of Lower Manhattan with her posters contained Nietzsche-like Truisms. First this look strange and was not accepted as works of art but later it turned out that in her works Jenny Holzer acted as art world’s soothsayer. She foresees and expresses important aspects of our life, for example, her best known truism reads: “Abuse of power comes as no surprise.” Isn’t this what we can see in politics? For Jenny Holzer text means much if not everything. At first she wrote her own texts but later started using the texts written by other famous, well-known people, such as the Polish Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska, Henri Cole (USA), Elfriede Jelinek (Austria), Fadhil Al-Azawi (Iraq), Yehuda Amichai (Israel) and Mahmoud Darwish (Palestine). Why are her works getting more and more popular today? I think the reason is that they are burning. They are not aimed at satisfying out aesthetic needs, they do not please our eyes with bright colors, beautiful sceneries, and interesting faces. Holzer’s works are aimed at uncovering the realities. This is why they are full of violence, sexuality, oppression, power, war and death. At the same time they seem to have mercy upon our feelings as all these things are depicted not through the images but mostly through the text. With her works Jenny Holzer makes us think and understand the life, which surrounds us. She brings to light and shows us something that was in shade and in silence, something that was intended to be hidden. Most of jenny Holzer works impress me greatly – I adore her ability to perfectly combine text and image. She does it so precisely that you can add nothing to this – everything is already expressed by only a few words. She applies texts from different contexts governmental documents or passages from de-classified US Army documents from the war in Iraq. For instance one of her LED works presents passages “from the minutes of interrogations of American soldiers who had committed human rights violations and war crimes in Abu Ghraib” (Walleston). Thus she wants to make public what was once hidden. Depicting dark dirty aspects of her country and citizens’ life Janny seems to repent American sins before the whole world and warn Americans of possibility to fall into the fire of war, violence and hatred. In my work I would like to draw attention to the hardest political edge of Holzer’s works – “Redaction Paintings”. They are huge black-and-white silkscreens presenting the passages from de-classified governmental documents blacked out by censors. They vividly expose the secret deeds and behavior of military intelligence bureaucracy in the USA after the terrible events of 9/11. "The works with declassified material are from my sometimes frantic (witness the number of paintings) worrying about the war and the attendant changes in American society. There is an unusually close connection between this artwork and my private politics, as there was with the “Lustmord” pieces [about genocidal rape in the former Yugoslavia], for example" (Walleston). The “Redaction Paintings” series was started yet in 2005 as the artist’s respond to cruelty and violence of power-holding governors and policy-makers. Using the documents Jenny Holzer changed nothing in them “when rendered them through silkscreen onto oil-painted grounds” (Walleston). The viewers’ attention is attracted by the censor marks used where the text is blocked out by a box or black-scribble. According to Janny Holzer, these works come from her “frantic worrying about the war and attendant changes in American society” ((Walleston)). It is obvious that my studio project is inspired by Jenny Holzer’s works. As I have already mentioned one of the series of her works is called Truisms and it is still one of my favorite works of art. She started creating them in 1977 being a student in an independent study program. At that time few people could imagine that these pieces of wisdom will become part of out everyday life. Very soon her Truisms have become a part of the public domain, they could be seen on outdoor walls and storefronts, billboards and digital displays, in museums and in the streets, in such public places as Time Square. Millions of people have seen them, thought over them, laughed at them and perhaps, sometimes cried at them. I am fond of all Holzer’s works but her Truisms will remain my favorite forever. Here some of them:a little knowledge can go a long way a lot of professionals are crackpots a man can't know what it is to be a mothe a name means a lot just by itself a positive attitude means all the difference in the world a relaxed man is not necessarily a better man a sense of timing is the mark of genius a sincere effort is all you can ask In my studio project I tried to convey the style and the expression of aphorisms and maxims as they are and always have been the pieces of text small in size but huge in the impression made on our mind. I dared to use some of Jenny Holzer’s truisms and I think she would encourage me as these pieces of wisdom belong to all people. My project work is a few black-and-white photos with the text on it. By these works I wanted one more time to underline the meaning of a text in contemporary art. Looking at an image and reading the text in it each viewer will create own relations between these expressive means. In any case the every viewer will get his own impression and opinion of the works I present. At the same time, I am sure that the text inserted into the pictures will say the final word and help a viewer to exactly understand the author’s message. The LED installation titled Torso also belongs to this series. This work contains “semi-circular signs displaying in red, blue, white, and purple light the phrases, utterances, statements, passages from investigation reports and case files of U.S. soldiers committed numerous crimes during the military actions in the Middle East” (Walleston). When you look at this work of art it seems that you hear the soldiers’ voices – sympathetic and damning, contradicting, anecdotal and evidentiary. They tell us about abuse and their blame. ACCA’s Artistic Director Juliana Engberg says: “Jenny Holzer’s words ask us to consider our thoughts and actions in the world. This essentially humanist and philosophical project encourages us to seek self enlightenment through examining our prejudices, false beliefs, fall back positions, and habits, to reach a new level of tolerance, understanding and self awareness” The “Redaction Paintings” truly add style to Holzer’s work. They became her visit-card and established her not only as a prominent artist of her time but also as a citizen, as a patriot who loves her country and wants to be proud of it. These official materials put on the silk-screened on the canvas show to all people how Americans fight wars. These papers authorized by famous policymakers and bureaucratic officials are at the same time unsurprising and eye-opening. All the reporters of the world could not depict government’s malfeasance so vividly and shockingly as the officials did this in the documents they created and signed. One can see that many of these papers are blurred due to countless reproductions – this shows how time is burying these human catastrophes reflected on paper until they become unactionable and illegible. What is the key role of the artist in these works? I think it is her courage and burning desire to change the existing state of things. Jenny Holzer even had not process these documents to intensify the effect they produce; “the black bars that hide the names of victims and their tormentors speak for themselves” (Walleston). One of the pictures contains the passage from the autopsy report describing the details of suffocation of a prisoner. And in some cases the pictures contain the whole documents blacked out – it seems that the whole country feels unbearable shame for what her soldiers have done! Another terrible evidence of U.S. soldiers’ violence towards the prisoners of war which Jenny Holzer turned into a work of art is called “WISH LIST document”. This document has the following history: a captain in the US Army human intelligence division requested “a wish list from subordinate interrogation teams for, innovative interrogation techniques that will prove more successful than current methods” (Walleston). One subordinate interpreted this request to mean, “the captain wanted suggestions legal, illegal and somewhere in between.” What implied this “new and more efficient interrogation technique” can be seen from the document: captain of the 4th Infantry Division ordered his men “to use phone book strikes, low voltage electrocution and muscle fatigue inducement” (Walleston). Some people may think why should she take these terrible things out to the light? Why should she tell the whole world about these shameful pages in contemporary U.S. history? This should be hidden and forgotten. However, it is necessary to understand that the artist in his activity is led by a sense of patriotism. Jenny Holzer loves her country and her people but she knows in order for her and for other people and for the following generations to be proud of their country, today America must admit its blame and do all possible to mitigate the results of its military actions ("Now Boarding: Destination, JFK"). Not the dead but alive need this so much! Why have I chosen this very series of Jenny Holzer works despite the fact that the whole list of her works of art really impresses? The point is I have noticed that in this very series she proved that the text can make powerful impact even if it is… absent on the picture as in this case, when in most documents a significant passages are blacked out. These documents lack the texts but how much these missing passages tell us about our life, about the country we live in, about our future! Why then the distinction between art and text still exists? It is obvious that the work of art makes a much stronger effect if it contains not only the image but also the text or … if it contains the test AS an image. Images are less stable and this is why the main issue of the art at all times is “What did the artist want to express by this image?”. When we deal with text such question does not arise, from the very beginning we know what the author wants to say because the author SAYS. Images can freely vary turning into new images. In contrast, letters are discrete. Artist often feel that people understand them incorrect –this does not mean that an artist is imperfect or people are stupid. This only means that images convey message in a very free form according to the background of every separate person. Artists hate when public and critics reduce their works to SUPPOSED message. In this relation I remember famous words of Laurie Anderson "writing about art is like dancing about architecture." The fact is art reaches every viewer through wheat he/she knows i.e. mostly and directly through words. It seems to me that art as texts should be seen as a strong metaphor . as I have already mentioned our life today is too fast and people, unfortunately, do not want spend much time on comprehending the art. They want to perceive art but…ASAP. The texts serve to this aim in the best way. Of course, this depends on how one examines the text. Also this may depend on what frame one puts between the word and the world. Text in art, in this case, must literally take shape, and its language no more desires to having the final say than any other image (Weilacher). Some may think that using texts for this purpose may lead to simplification of art as a whole but I do not think this will happen. We have immortal masterpieces of world famous artists of the past – they are the brilliant examples for modern artists, they show the basics of the art, its grounds. And text as image is just one of numerous forms of art which undoubtedly has right for existence. In the best way it serves the need of contemporary viewer and nobody knows what will happen to this technique in future. Works cited Walleston, Amiee (April 20, 2009). "Now Showing | Jenny Holzer". The New York Times TMagazine. http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/now-showing-jenny-holzer/. Retrieved 2009-04-20. Weilacher, Udo, In Gardens: Profiles of Contemporary European Landscape Architecture. Boston: Birkhauser, 2005. "Now Boarding: Destination, JFK". The Architects Newspaper, September 21, 2004. Read More