Holzer presenting her art at the event (Tricia Tongco)

A diverse crowd of faculty members, staff, students, and local art enthusiasts gathered in a tent under the night sky on Tuesday for “Words in Public Spaces: An Evening with Jenny Holzer.”
 
The Vision and Voices event marked a return to USC for conceptual artist Holzer. In 1999, she created "Blacklist", an installation of granite benches in front of the USC Fisher Museum, commemorating the blacklisting of creative artists, teachers, and other citizens during the McCarthy Era of the 1940s and 50s.

During the first half of the event, Holzer presented a slideshow of her work, gave some background into each piece, and read aloud her text-based artworks.

Holzer's art likes to stand out. Her "Truisms" series of aphorisms ("truisms") find their way onto street posters, telephone booths, and even on an LED billboard in Times Square in 1982. In 1990, Holzer was the first woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.

These works, which consist of pithy sayings like “Raise boys and girls the same way” and “Money creates taste,” provide social comments for the viewer to think about as they see them larger-than-life in their urban environment. 
 
Holzer’s comments about her thought-provoking work were often dryly humorous and insightful; the audience responded with laughter and also rapt attention.
 
“‘I want peace right now while I’m still alive,’” Holzer quoted from one of her pieces. “Seems like a reasonable thing to ask.”
 
After showing an image of a building in Berlin illuminated by her text, Holzer remarked, “I made this building into, if not art, at least a night light.”
 
When she spoke of her own writing, she said in a self-deprecating manner, “I quickly and reflexively go to bleak.”
 
But Holzer’s work has evolved to the point where she has stopped using her own words in her work, instead appropriating poetry and novels as well as redacted goverment documents which focus more on the absence of language.
 
“I’m thrilled to not be writing anymore,” said Holzer.
 
Following the slideshow, Jenny and three USC staff members sat down for a conversation about Jenny’s work.
 
USC Fisher Museum Director, Selma Holo, detailed the origins of “Blacklist,” an installation by Holzer that examines issues of censorship and freedom of speech.
 
“Students in the cinema school wanted to memorialize people that were arrested and blacklisted for speaking their minds, and Jenny was so obviously the right choice for this project.”
 
Holo continued, “Jenny Holzer has many masterpieces, but this one is in granite.”
 
In my opinion, the most illuminating part of the night was the Q & A, giving audience members the rare opportunity to engage with the artist behind such monumental and famous works.
 
One audience member asked Holzer if she would ever return to relying on her own words or writing, and Holzer quipped “I try to be funny in emails.”
 
When asked about her choice of materials for her projects, the artist replied, “I sometimes try text in different mediums to see how the medium inflects meaning.” Holzer works with a spectrum of materials, including granite, waves, buildings, projections, electronics, and human bones, but always in the public sphere.

“I want my art for people walking by, not intending to see art,” Holzer said.

The final question was regarding how she relates to the discourse surrounding her own work.

Holzer, whose art intentionally seems anonymous, had a fitting reply, “I am honored, but I don’t even have much of a relationship with myself. I just make the work about the work.”

Reach Staff Reporter Tricia Tongco here.

Below is a slideshow of some of Holzer's work. Enjoy!