Large white capital letters slowly move across the dark curved facade of the museum as the exterior of the building becomes a screen. It is like a black and white movie that only has text.
The projection is a special exhibit by Jenny Holzer – a compilation of political statements about terrorism and the Iraq war, as well as poems by Nobel Prize winner and Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. Titled For the Guggenheim, the installation was commissioned by the Guggenheim foundation to celebrate the restoration of the museum. The work was inaugurated September 22 when Mayor Bloomberg switched on the installation.
"I am so happy that the Guggenheim has invited me to project on Wright's perfect building. It was an honor to hang text inside twenty years ago, and working with the museum's great face is the best possible return," Holzer said.
Restoring the Guggenheim
For several years, museum enthusiasts had to endure with the renovation of the Guggenheim-- a landmark building designed by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The building was encased in scaffolding from September 2005 to July earlier this year, as it went under an extensive "scrubbing." Eleven coats of paint were removed, cracks were filled, and the concrete was reinforced.
The massive restoration project received a large endorsement from Peter B. Lewis, who was the former chairman of the Guggenheim Board of Trustees in 2003, the time the restoration was initiated. To honor Lewis and the completion of the restoration, the museum foundation commissioned artist Jenny Holzer to create a site-specific light projection for the facade of the museum.
Projection Artist Jenny Holzer
For more than thirty years, Holzer has been incorporating the power of text into her art. While some of her projects include street posters, carved-stone benches and paintings, text-based light projections have been reprensentative of her art since 1996.
Holzer has an ongoing relationship with the Guggenheim, which began in 1989 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. At the time, the installation featured a running LED scroller that was banded around the museum's rotunda. She also did works commissioned for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Holzer has also exhibited in thirteen other countries including Italy, Argentina, and France, lighting up monumental architectural spaces. Some of those include the Neue National Galerie in Berlin, the glass Pyramide du Louvre in Paris, and the New York Public Lirary and Rockefeller Center in New York.
The projection exhibit will continue every Friday evening from sunset to 11 p.m. until December 31, with a special additional showing on New Year's Eve.
