"Protect Me From What I Want"

As the elevators door opened onto the forth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art on 75 and Madison, my eyes were bombarded with dizzying topaz, my ears flooded with Imogen Heap's "Speeding Cards", and my hands grasped to remember my first experience with LED lights and music last August.  "For Chicago" (2008) has hit New York with a silent bang, fitting perfectly into our speeding island of non-stop lights, party, money, fame, champagne, and a little bit of funny business.  There is no hesitation for Holzer not to be here- as NYC is the most imitated metropolis to date.  Our own familiar Midtown LED lights- though cheesy Americana hot dogs in thought- somehow fit-in only on the streets of Manhattan- managing to make copiers look tacky and unoriginal.  Holzer focused her efforts on "Redaction Paintings", "Electronic Signs", and "Lustmord"- a German word meaning rape-slaying. Jenny Holzer's new exhibit, Protect Protect, showing at the museum until May 31 (plenty of time!) was the perfect juxtaposition to the gray-skied nature walk I had would soon embark upon.  

 

[Why ask a question you already know the answer to? My answer: I have no idea.

I knew pictures weren't allowed, but I asked the guard anyway.  I should have just taken a picture and been scolded by the security guard in sunglasses (sure to have experienced a surge of sea legged-ness in recent days). Therefore, these images are, sadly, not mine.]

Ego aside, I was quite jealous that "For Chicago" wasn't for New York. Ten electronic LED signs with amber diodes was the living space for text speeding along like cars on Highway 61. Holzer's text ran vertical and horizontal and at different speeds, making the difference like a friendly giant- intimidating at first, but comfortable after a calm observation.  The viewer can step away and look at the entire picture of the opening room: Amber reflecting off the white walls, yellow pulsating upside down like a disco in a club, real colors from beyond the glass window being overshadowed by synthetic elaborateness.  Or the viewer can dare to read the text, immediately swallowing Holzer's heavy words with a bright contradiction of happy, consumer orderliness.  Conveniently reflecting what New Yorkers tend to stumble upon everyday, why does this light look so good minimally?

By this point, if you do not know, I am a big fighter/fan/experimenter/not-yet-innovator of text within art, dance, color, and music.  Ms. Holzer's exhibit not only made me happy to see Holzer's own personal thoughts literally made into rays which project loudly, maybe obnoxiously to audiences everywhere; but also encouraged people like me that one really can be heard, in a city SO B I G, via sight.  

Brewing a blinding-white with a sunset-purple, Holzer constantly contradicts what is synthetic and what is raw. Both colors exist in our natural world, but are hardly ever combined to produce such an effect (see above). 

Green Purple Cross (2008) and MONUMENT (2008) had to be my other favorites.  Holzer spread her neon expressions throughout the entire floor- blending simplicity with color.  The repetition of the amount of lines of light was absolutely spot on.  I became stuck gazing at one electronic sign raised higher than my height (my initial reaction always to look up).  After realizing I wasn't on my own horizon (via neck cramps), I started staring at one neon sign at my own height and the room seemed to become smaller, less grand.  I kept alternating how I was looking at the lights/installations.  Each time I changed my own focus, the room changed- significantly altering how surrounding objects and people appeared.  The light had a complete effect on my world at that present moment in time and space.  What if all the lights turned off? 

Here's a description from the exhibit that shows Holzer's ever- inspirational contradictions between color and emotion: "Purple includes autopsy reports of detainees that dies while in American custody, documents detailing various events and conditions at Guantanamo Bay, a series of policy documents regarding the treatment of enemy combatants..."

What does this say about the color of war as we see it?  How do our TV's portray it?  When you think of war what is the first color you think of?  I visually associate Vietnam with a murky green- I think of a marsh and camouflage.  When I think of Iraq I visualize a murky brown and camouflage- the same murky green that faded and became old.  Repetition losing color again and again and again.