art essays

3.    Jenny Holzer

 

 What I felt from Holzer’s works, at first were that they were visualising the theory of visual art (mostly visual communication system). It bases on semiotics so that what Norman Bryson clarified by his discourse and what Holzer clarified by her presentations were the same. It is too clear to understand her work from the aspect of sign system. Her rhetoric is perfect because she used them consciously. This is the difference between her works and the works that Bryson interpreted in his essay. All the works he picked up were obeying the sign system unconsciously. On the contrary Holzer consciously controlled discursive meanings and figural meanings. By her intention, she also brought the “weaker side” of the words to the centre, and is playing our conscious and unconscious.

 

 Michael Auping describes the history that linguistic texts came into art work in his book “Jenny Holzer”……..4;

 

“As early as 1908, the Cubists incorporated fragments of language into their paintings……”₉.  Then he described Dada collagists. However, we cannot ignore the existence of Marcel Duchamp. He describes, “Duchamp brought about an uneasy awareness that art is a system dominated by language and that its meanings are determined by consensus and usage……..”₁₀.

Duchamp had already noticed the blind spot of our perception at that time. However, we can distinguish Holzer’s works from Duchamp’s. Duchamp’s works were irreplaceable, but Holzer’s are replaceable to other representations.

 

 She used language as a language, even though they are also visual signs. She started text work from “Truisms series” that had absolutely no image and no decoration. It took many ways of representations. In each time it changed its appearance and she titled her works such as “Untitled (Selection from truisms)”, “Selection from Inflammatory Essays”, “Selection from The Living series”, “Selection from Survival series” and “Selection from Lustmord series”. Her recent work “Lustmord” (1993‒94) had presented by photographs of handwriting texts on the skin and presented with human bones rang by carved silver. Although she used image (object) as a visual communication in her presentation, the text “Lustmord” still exists in itself. In another word, her text itself is her work as a literature. It is independent from its presentations. Her presentation is a context. Remember there were two aspects of context. “Context in art work” and “art work in context”.

 

 However it is impossible to draw a line between “context in work” and “context out of work”. Now I would like to try to research all the contexts around her work. In case of the exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1989, when I assume her works are linguistic texts, all the presentations including LED signs and the space (museum) become contexts.　However it is obvious that these are parts of her work. How about, the artist = Holzer (who made), the viewers (who perceive), the time (when it happened) and the history of Holzer and viewers and art history, are?

 

 These are the contexts. It is too hard to judge that what is the context in her work and out of her work. However the important thing is that she knows consciously her work would be involved in these contexts (all are under her control) and I guess she would not mind to represent her work in different context (out of her control) near or far future. Because she must know that contexts are changeable without limit.

 

 All these contexts are the ones that exist when we see her work. We should not forget the context when she made her work, it means when she made her texts at first, although she might think some ways of presentations. This is absolutely the context in her work (in her text).

 

 We must recognise her texts as independent works. They can exist in any kind of contexts around them. They are literature. There is no reason that visual artists cannot produce literature. Her “Truism”, “Inflammatory Essays”, “Laments”, “Lustmord” ,etc. are poems. She produced only 9 texts in 17 years. They are very carefully considered and perfectly finished (much controlled).

 

 Her presentation roles to attract the audience. It emphasizes the message of the texts, and give us more than the message (another meaning out of the texts). This point is the essence of her work. But more important thing is her text itself. It is obvious now that the most important thing of art is not its appearance, but its essence. It is difficult to define what the essence is. And it is true that the appearance brings us the essence. I do not say her essence exists only in her texts, but they are the bases of her works. A presentation adds the meaning or changes the meaning of its text. Because it is a context.

 

 Next, I would like to get into her texts. But now I have some questions to think: 1. What is her unconscious? Because her work is very much controlled. 2. What is her body? Because I cannot see her body including her vision and desire in her work.

 

 To think about the body I came to have another question now; What is the body? Is that also a sign?

 

  

    

Notes

₉Michael Auping / Jenny Holzer / New York universe 1992, p7 ₁₀Ibid. p9

     

2.   BODY AND GAZE

 

1.    The gaze

 

Norman Bryson brought the conception of the“recognition” to fight to the “perception”. He insists that it is difficult to recognise under the pressure of perceptuarism. To make sure of the perception and to show what makes recognition difficult, he presents a system of visual communication by using the word ”gaze”.

 

 Bryson uses the word “gaze” to express his notion particularly in his book, “Vision and Painting”…….5. In summary, the gaze is social and traditional eyes that influence and make decision of our perceptions. This idea seems to come from the psychoanalytical conception of Jacque Lacan.

 

 Art critic, Michio Hayashi summarised his theory; “Lacan visualized the notion of Freud. However his important point is that he interpreted the visuality not only by the field of “perception” but also by the field of “meaning”. We are not only looking at the world but always are” distinguishing by separating them as a meaning. And more important thing is that distinguishing is not decided by individual intention, it is obeying the social division (possibility of exchanging in the society) that had existed from the first. And a subject can become a subject by getting in the field of meaning that has already existed. A subject is looking as a subject, but it is also looked by the field of meaning. It is divided in its double functions. In here Lacan calls the watch from the field of meaning as a “gaze”……..When we look at the world, we look it obeying the image that has already circulated. The vision that is gazed by previous images has to fight against several previous images by strategy to establish the subject”₁₁

 

 In the same essay, Masayuki Tanaka explains again; “human vision is under the control of the “ready made” visual system, and it forces us the previous connection between visual signifier and signified.”

 

 “By Bryson, this human vision is “the gaze” and the system of visual signifier is “visuality”………by Lacan, the subject as human is always having two visions that are fighting each other. One is the desire to complete our own view from our internal and another is signification by gaze which comes from the system outside (external).”₁₂

 

 This idea is the same thing as Yoshihiko Ikegami explained, “human communication is imperfect. It is flexible”₁₃,but in it there is a dynamism of creating new code and new signification among the battle of previous and new code. We cannot ignore the previous code that is our tradition when we see the paintings. And no others can avoid being influenced by their tradition=gaze, when they represent their perceptions.

 

 

Notes

₁₁op. cit  BT Jan. 1996, p139# ₁₂Ibid. pp139-140# ₁₃op. cit Introduction to Semiotics, p43#

2.    The invisible body

 

As Bryson certified that “the body is only a transformation of material signs. Let me quote a long sentence from his last paragraph of “The invisible body”₁₄.

 

 “To understand the painting as sign, we have to forget the proscenic surface of the image and think behind it: not to an original perception in which the surface is luminously bathed, but to the body whose activity ‒for the painter as for the viewer‒ is always and only a transformation of material signs. That body may be eclipsed by its own representations; it may disappear, like a god, in the abundance of its attributes; but it is outward, from its invisible musculature, rather than inwards, from its avid gaze, that all the images flow.”

 

 Even if it is outward, in case of Andy Warhol who denied his body and also Holzer’s works supply us her body as invisible. However if it is true as he says, “Painting is itself a locus of mobility in the field of signification.”₁₅, and signification is an active performance of the viewer, I must say that his notion is standing on the base of assumption that the painting was made by a human (an artist) who has a body, and the viewer can see it in the painting as a sign. It might not be a problem, but I doubt now there might exist something like a “beauty” out of body, out of signification. He may say it is not painting(not art).

 

 I wonder now whether or not art (painting) is only a sign? And what is not a sign? For example nature has a “beauty”, but not art. We can say it is also signification because beauty can be in a culture, but I cannot deny “the pure perception” that exists on the physical level more than a signification. I wonder also how the body can get into art.

 

 Bryson says that viewer can imagine the body behind image. All the images flow outward against the avid gaze. First body exists. And painting is a sign. This is his view point. And he believes the “body’s internal energy” and “vibrancy”.₁₆

 

 In my opinion, trying to look at the body of artist is also the gaze of viewers. And to express it is the gaze of the artist now. I am questioning now, if the gaze is social and up to date regulation, in contemporary art world, some express their bodies visible and some do not, why? Why Warhol hid his body and why Western tradition avoided expressing artist’s body? If expressing their bodies are desire, why in the late 20^th century many artists hide their bodies again? And how about Oriental tradition? Bryson has not answered these questions. He just said it is a gaze or it is a “glance”(desire).

 

 I used the word “beauty” to express something out of signification. However “beauty” is a too ambiguous word. Then I would like to consider the words “punctum” and “jouissance” in the texts of Roland Barthes (“Camera Lucida”…….6, and “The Pleasure of the Text”….7) because these seem to be out of signification.

 

 In his last book “Camera Lucida” he brought the notion of “punctum” to express photography that is basically a sign, but there are something out of signification. By him the punctum is almost a detail or texture of the surface that we cannot signify. Though it is a signifier it has more than two signified. It is ambiguous. We must imagine its meaning. He called this “punctum”, and against this he called what is in the field of signification ”studium”; it is a cultural interest, so that we must learn. On the other hand punctum is out of culture=sign.

 Though he said that detail is a punctum and is out of code, as Yoshihiko says, human can make communication out of code possible to complete. Besides, by Norman Bryson this is also a sign. But this is a figural sign. He defined the signified (meaning) has two types. One is “discursive” and another is “figural”.

 

 

 Barthes said that detail is a punctum, but it is still a figural sign. Because it is a signifier and it has some meanings though they are ambiguous and unlimited. I intended to obey the notion of Bryson. However here is a key point. If interpretation is in the field of meaning, what is not a field of meaning? This exists on the physical level. It is something like a pain, stimulation and puncturing (physical comfort or uncomforted). I will call these something “stimulation”. Stimulation is, whether comfortable or uncomfortable, not a sign.

 

I must correct now, Bryson was right. He never said art is a sign, but painting is a sign. This was right. Because painting means the work inside frame. There is stimulation outside frames. However when I think about contemporary works or painting with its contexts surrounded by, I have to admit the existence of stimulation. In another word, stimulation is one of the contexts. Especially to think about Holzer’s works, I cannot ignore the relation with it.

 

 Another point of outside signification is a Barthes’ another term “jouissance”. It came from his book, “The Pleasure of the Text” (In English translation this is “bliss”.) He uses this word as a pleasure of playing (reading) as a viewer (reader). It has no meaning, but only a pressure caused by desire. “pleasure can be expressed in words, bliss cannot. Bliss is unspeakable, inter‒dicted.”₁₇

 

 This is a pleasure of physical work, something like a tiredness in sports and pure perception of looking without meaning. The body that has been shown on canvas was a sign (figural sign). But this is a different level. This kind of desire exists in both artists and viewers. Both are outside the field of signification.

 

 If blind person got his/her vision someday, he/she would have a great pleasure by only seeing not depending what he/she looks at. Such kind of pleasure caused by light, temperature, smell, sound or touching influences our communication through art work. Therefore it is not representable. We can know that jouissance of artist did exist and we can imagine it by referring to our experiences. This is a sign, but we never be able to have the real experience of the artist’s jouissance. This is out of signs. So that I would like to borrow the word “jouissance” as “unrepresentable pleasure caused by physical work both artists and viewers have”.

 

 Now I can answer why Warhol and Holzer hid their bodies. In case of Warhol if showed his body, it meant the “subject” is a human who is weak, small and has limited life and no power, same as us. However he showed us the subject of “God” as a myth of vision (fantasy). He consciously controlled himself to act as God: stood above the human. The eyes of God are still mythology in present time. God was created by audience. It was a new God. We are renewing it. He definitely knew it was a vision. But he also knew that we still need something to believe after God has died, otherwise we cannot live. As Warhol said, he only offered to us what we wanted. So that he needed to make his body invisible. When he was shot, he must act as if he did not feel any fear and pain, as if he did not have any stimulation and jouissance. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly his expressions by words (“Dialy”, interview, etc.) tell honestly his truth, but very carefully avoided expressing his body.

 

 In case of Jenny Holzer I suppose her position is close to Warhol. She produced work, produced the eyes of God and directed the drama that should be completed by work, place, time and audience. As Japanese critic, Hiroshi Minamishima, pointed out the similarity of her text to the novel of Dostoevsky₁₈(Russian novelist, 1821-81)₁₉. He also could not express his desire by the gaze. And he expressed his morality (what he wanted to say) by borrowing bodies of some actors in his novel = fiction. Many different persons lived in him, it was his identity. He tried to shoe the real by bringing some different viewpoints to one place.

 

 He established the subject who tells the story as a God whose position is above all the actors, who knows everything from past to future and he does not have a body. He was not allowed to express his body and he should not do for his purpose to complete the story. But he did by his desire. By a critic, the huge amount of his writing helps us to imagine the time and his body that he had done. It is also hard to read for a reader. But he spent many more words (details) than that are unnecessary to tell the story. It is because of his obsession to express his body, fear of stopping and he never satisfied in spite of such huge amount. We can imagine there might be his jouissance existed.

 

 How about Holzer? Now I am trying to get into her texts to find her body. Before then I add Hiroshi’s pointed out; “Holzer used the word “voice” to express her texts during her interview. It obviously teaches us that the texts exist as an invisible voice that tells the morality.”₂₀ I certify that she also produced the voice of God.

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

₁₄Norman Bryson / Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze / New Haven and London      1983, p171 ₁₅Ibid. p170 ₁₆ Ibid. p131

 

₁₇ Roland Barthes / The Pleasure of the Text(translated by Richard Miller, Le Plaisir du   Texte, English) / Basil Blackwell Ltd 1975 (1973), p21

₁₈Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhaelovitch / The Possessed / Windmill press Kingswood, Surrey 1914

₁₉Hiroshi Minamishima / Jenny Holzer: BT Dec.1994 / Bijutsu syuppan (Japan) # He pointed out the similarity between “Lustmord”by Holzer and “Possessed”by Dostoevsky

₂₀ Ibid p35 #

      

３.TIME AND INDEX

 

1.    Texts of Jenny Holzer

 

 In interview with Michael Auping, Holzer described that “…….When I was writing the statements, I wanted them to seem as if they were the strongly held opinions of individuals.  ……. They are conflicting truths, however, because there are over two hundred fifty different viewpoints in the collection.”₂₁(for “Truisms”)

 

 The word she used “conflicting truths” is appearing in all her texts. In another word it is reality. “Inflammatory Essays” consists of 10 chapters and each chapter is made of 100 words, 20 lines and alphabetically ordered. She said about this, “I wanted them to be recognizable as part of a series. ”₂₂ As this, her texts have relations each other. However it seems not to connect each other in general thought. So that I can say the relation is unusual. For example, the sixth chapter of “Essay”, the text described about “freedom”. “DON’T CONTROL OR MANIPULATE.”₂₃ But the tenth chapter talks about “domination”. “THE MOST EXQUISITE PLEASURE IS DOMINATION.”₂₄ Here is a conflicting. Why does it happen? Because we think that messengers are the same. But we must know that she was writing from different viewpoints. These 10 chapters have been written from 10 viewpoints. I can say, in each chapter, subjects are different. She connected them together and made one work (brought them in one place). Each had become having relation that is connected by new code (very poetic). This new relation shows reality of the world (it is full of conflicting).

 

 Using many different subjects, she stands above all. Her viewpoint is taking God’s eyes that are looking at the subject. God is a ghost. It does not have a body and cannot speak, but comes into some subjects to speak. Subjects are humans who have bodies, feel stimulation and jouissance. However they can express their bodies only by words (signs). All we can get from representation is thought (not pain) or we can re-experience their stimulation and jouissance as a simulation.

 

 By Heidegger, “Human behaves as if we are the creators of the language and host, but language is our owner. Because by essence of the language, language speaks. Human is answering to language hearing that the language talks to us. Language makes us sign. Thus at first, at last, language induce us to the existence of language.”₂₅

 

 In Holzer’s work, the texts (language) existed before it has presented and also before it had make a meaning. At first language existed, and then it became the text and finally it has presented. I can say whole presentations were under her control, they cannot escape from their contexts that are presented, but the texts are living independently. It is ready to escape from its context and also from Holzer. It keeps “the sensuous materiality of the signifier” and we can feel “the sensual thickness of the language”. Exaggerated presentations were effective equipment to have an illusion of reality to us. In another word, she offered a theatre where her texts can take place (live).

 

Now I make focus into the subjects of her texts. She uses “I” as the subject of her texts in the series after “Truisms” It is the difference of her texts between “Truisms” and that after “Truisms”. However, I must consider the subject referring Lacan’s discourse.

 

By Lacan, “We should not think that the subject is only a speaker of the text or the pronoun appeared in the text. The French word “ennonce” means text, but there are many texts that do not leave the clue to find the subject. For example, when I say "It rains", the subject of this action is not included in the text……..So that the subject of the text is not always as same as the subject of sentence "I".”₂₆

I suggest now, it is helpful to refer this notion to the notion of the “index” quoting Rosalind Krauss.

Notes

₂₁ op. cit Jenny Holzer, pp82-83 ₂₂ Ibid. p83 ₂₃ Jenny Holzer / Inflammatory Essays / 1979-82, chapter 6 ₂₄ Ibid. chapter 10 ₂₅ Martin Heidegger / Dichterich wohnt der Mensch, traduit par Andre Preau, in Les    Cahiers de Sud, no 344, 1957 (translated by Hiroshi Kume), in “Linguistic Structure of Unconscious”, Japanese / Revue de la Pensee d’aujourd’hui vol.9-8 Lacan / Seidosya (Japan) 1981, p60 # ₂₆ Jacque Lacan / The language of Criticism and the Sciences of Man / symposium in Boltemore 1966, translated by Masashi Orishima, Japanese, op.cit Revue de la Pensee d’aujourd’hui vol.9-8 Lacan, p32 #

 

 

 2. Index

 

 Though Bryson divided sign for discursive and figural, an American semiologist Charles Sanders Peirce categorized sign in 3 types: “symbol”, “icon” and “index”. The painterly trace is a figural sign by Bryson, but this is an “index” by Rosalind Krauss. This is a trace of artist’s body.

 

She used the notion of “index” in her essay, “Notes on Index: part 1”……10; it is a sign which relation between its signifier and signified are guaranteed by physical contact. She describes it relating to Roland Barthes that “studium” and “punctum” in “Camera Lucida” is the difference between “icon” and “index”. The first one is a simulation of the real constructed consciously and later one is over detail by mechanical reproduction. She says index is like a punctum, as Barthes says, and adds that its practice can complete not being influenced by the characteristic of its material. That is to say, its meaning does not depend on its material. In her words what it signifies is “logic” instead of “medium”.

 

So that I can say the “painterly trace” that Bryson dealt with many times was an index that implies artist’s action and time he spent to paint his painting, and also his feeling (passion, desire). He called this “body”.

 

However Krauss uses index in wide range. Michio Hayashi explained in his essay, “Cross Over Modernism – Rosalind Krauss ……14; “She found index not only in the physical phenomena, but also in language. Language, for its characteristic, seemed to be thought as a “symbol”, but there are some kind of words it cannot be explained as a symbol. Linguist, Roman Jakobson named these “shifter”. They are for instance, “I”, “You”, “this”, “there”, “here”,etc.”₂₇ Krauss explains, “It is a sign which is inherently “empty”, its signification a function of only this one instance, guaranteed by existential presence of just this object. It is the meaningless meaning that is instituted through the term of the index.”₂₈

 

Michio adds, “The shift of meaning happens not by the difference in the context of its language system inside, but by the situation of communication that places outside of the language system. It can be an index because the real world and abstract structure of language can touch each other through the existence of speaker. So that the meaning of each shifter is thought as a trace of this touch.”₂₉

 

He pointed out the argument against Saussure by Lyotard₃₀ understanding this fundamentally a similar notion. “Lyotard says that there are unclear depth in signification by the visuality which recognise the distance between human body and the world which surround us.”₃₁

 

I would like to bring this notion of index into Holzer’s work and try to read them again. I tried to find index in her presentations, but there were no painterly traces. (Carved stones, LED signs, posters, etc. were mechanically produced.)

 

However, I could found two indexes that imply Holter in two levels. The first index tells us only her existence: the fact that someone left the statements on the street, in telephone boxes and on parking meters, etc. and her past action that she wrote these texts. But there were not any more information of her body. These were the perfect crimes. So that, we must interpret the second index: the fact that she did not leave any index of her body.

 

She did not express her body not because of her gaze. She could do if she wanted. She hid her body by her intention as well as Warhol. This is very opposite of Jackson Pollock. To express his body was his desire. So what is her desire? I guess that her desire is making viewers get into her by their active intentions. On the contrary, Pollock was always active and viewers must accept him only passively.

  

 

Notes

₂₇ Masayuki Tanaka, Michio Hayashi / Cross Over Modernism – Rosalind Krauss: Art    History Now: BT Feb. 1996 / Bijutsu syuppan, p132# ₂₈ Rosalind E.Krauss / The Originality of Avant Garde and Other Modernist Myths / Cambridge, Massaxhusetts 1985, p206 ₂₉ op. cit BT Feb. 1996, p132# ₃₀ Jean Francois Lyotard / Discourse and Figure / Paris 1971 ₃₁ op cit BT Feb. 1996, p134#