Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Installation for the Guggenheim" by Jenny Holzer is an artwork originally shown at the Guggenheim Museum in 1989, then again in 2024. 

Inside the museum’s iconic rotunda, bright LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, hang along the edge of the spiraling ramp, facing the center of the cavernous space. The sharp light of the LEDs disrupts the otherwise soft, natural light entering the space from the oculus and ground floor windows. 

The LEDs emit a single line of digital text from a black electronic-display signboard, which is attached to the face of the ramp’s spiraling parapet wall. The words are kinetic, scrolling counterclockwise as they travel up the spiral in synchronous motion. Their digitally programmed movement is brisk and smooth.

Easily legible, the words travel at a steady pace. From the ground floor, even the words at the top level are clear, uniformly 1 1/2 feet tall throughout.

The color of the glowing text slowly fluctuates from subtle pinks to blue and orange pastels, to vibrant reds, greens, and yellows. Digital effects distort, transform, and obscure the words. For instance, text may burst as if exploding, pulsate in and out of focus, or even disappear as rippling blends or flashes of color momentarily take over the signboard.

On close inspection, the text originates at the base of the signboard that begins beside a column on Level 2 and later disappears at its terminus on Level 7. As new words emerge, they form short phrases with blank spaces between them. Eventually a set of phrases concludes, and its tail end winds up the spiral until the entire installation becomes wordless. Then the cycle restarts. Occasionally a new set of phrases emerges assuming different typeface styles.

From any point on the rotunda’s ramp, one can gaze across its open void to the dynamic installation on the other side. Running a hand over the parapet wall, you can feel large powder-coated aluminum bars that hook over its top every two feet, securing the signboard to the parapet’s outward face. Appearing black overall, the 164-foot signboard reveals a subtle grid pattern delineated by individual diodes that emit each letter. Each diode produces green, red, and blue light that in combination produce the varying colors of the texts.

The installation is played in a looped video file format, and to experience its entirety takes about 6 hours. A short sampling of the text reads: 

"A POSITIVE ATTITUDE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD 
AMBITION IS JUST AS DANGEROUS AS COMPLACENCY 
CONFUSING YOURSELF IS A WAY TO STAY HONEST 
DREAMING WHILE AWAKE IS A FRIGHTENING CONTRADICTION 
EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE DESERVE SPECIAL CONCESSIONS 
HABITUAL CONTEMPT DOES NOT REFLECT A FINER SENSIBILITY 
IF YOU LIVE SIMPLY YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT 
IT IS IMPORTANT TO STAY CLEAN ON ALL LEVELS 
LACK OF CHARISMA CAN BE FATAL 
MONOMANIA IS A PREREQUISITE OF SUCCESS 
SACRIFICING YOURSELF FOR A BAD CAUSE IS NOT A MORAL ACT 
THE SUM OF YOUR ACTIONS DETERMINES WHAT YOU ARE
WORDS TEND TO BE INADEQUATE"

This 2024 reimagining of the original sign fills the entire rotunda with Holzer’s writings, from her 1977 to 1979 series "Truisms" to later texts on the implications of violence and living with loss. A sampler of Holzer’s text-based practice, the messages touch on urgent political and social issues, highlighting the enduring power of language. Associate Conservator of Time-Based Media, Agathe Jarczyk: “It is really about understanding what makes this work, the Guggenheim work. Is it that it is installed as a circular piece? Is it the text series? The typefaces, the effects? All these questions were questions that we had to ask ourselves to really understand the identity of the piece.”

at guggenheim.org/audio

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