Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: Jenny Holzer’s 1996 work titled "Selections from Erlauf (Memorial Bench I & II)" consists of a pair of carbon drawings on tracing paper, both just over 6 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Outlined letters have been traced onto the cream-colored transparent paper, forming a composition of twenty-two rows of evenly spaced text. Each row contains a few words, making short phrases that stand alone or read as one continuous text. The phrases are neatly left alight, with uniform letters in a capitalized serif typeface. The letters’ thinly outlined edges sometimes blur where the carbon has been rubbed into darkened smudges and fingerprints. Running about three inches inside the paper’s edges is a thin line, creating a border around the composition. A simple patinaed metal frame surrounds the work. 

Narrated by a screen reader, the text on the left drawing reads:

ALWAYS POLITE TO OFFICERS  
SMILING OFTEN TO DISARM 
THE ENERGETICALLY CRUEL  
BLOOD OUTSIDE FOR ANIMALS 
A MEMORY OF DOMINANCE 
THE SOLDIER BITING YOUR STOMACH  
SNEAKING TO WASH  
THE HORSE RUNNING INTO WALLS 
NEW TEETH IN THE BABY’S MOUTH  
THE BABY MOVES TO YOUR OTHER BREAST  
THE FOREARM OF YOUR LOVER  
ADDING WATER TO FOOD 
FULL OF SWALLOWED BLOOD  
SON OF RAPIST  
I RAISE MY ARMS TO HIM  
THE CHILD WITH A HAND IN HER 
BIRDS EATING THEM  
PROPERTY SEIZED BY THE ZEALOUS  
YOUR MOTHER WITH NO REAL POWER  
THINKING WHILE HELD DOWN  
AGREEING TO STAY STILL  
WAITING TO BE TRANSPORTED

The text on the right drawing reads:

EYE CUT BY FLYING GLASS  
THE CHILD WALKS ON A BROKEN LEG 
BONE VISIBLE THROUGH THE FOREHEAD  
BITING THE HELPER  
CHEWING WOOD FOR COMFORT  
DOCILE SO HE IS FAST  
DYING FROM KNOWING  
PARENTS QUIET WHEN YOU ARE TAKEN  
WRITING ON THE WALLS AT NIGHT  
KILLING EFFEMINATE MEN  
THE BOY URINATES IN CLASS  
THE LEGS OF YOUR MOTHER  
USING GOD  
EXPEDIENT POLICY  
NO CHANCE TO AFFECT THE ENDING  
STUPID SENTENCES EVERYWHERE  
WHO GAVE MILK  
WHO MADE BEDS  
WHO LIVED IN THE WOODS  
WHO RAN TO THE RIVER  
WHO DIED LOOKING  
WHOSE THOUGHTS ARE MISSING

These texts are drawn from Holzer’s "Erlauf" text series from 1995, a collection of fragmentary descriptions that depict war as an authorless compendium of memories, events, disruptions, shocks, and questions. The texts were written for the Erlauf Peace Monument, which Holzer realized in 1995 in the Austrian town where US and Soviet generals met in 1945 to mark the end of World War II in Europe.

Holzer’s early stoneworks were engraved using a transfer method that involved copying text by hand onto sheets of vellum. These drawings are process works, at times showing the artist’s handwritten notations and other manufacturing marks. In some instances, lines of graphite are purposefully smeared by hand to give emphasis to the text and create gestural compositions.

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