The Smithsonian American Art Museum has commissioned Jenny Holzer (b. 1950), an internationally renowned conceptual artist best known for her pioneering work incorporating texts into light-based sculptures and projections, to create a major site-specific light sculpture. "For SAAM" is scheduled to be installed in the museum's contemporary galleries in November.
"For SAAM" will be Holzer's first cylindrical column of light and text created from white electronic light emitting diodes. The work will be approximately 28 feet tall and 4 feet in diameter, and will be suspended from a vault in the museum's Lincoln Gallery, reaching almost to the floor. The featured texts will be selected from four of the artist's series—Truisms, Living (Selections), Survival and Arno—and will include some of her best-known statements.
Once programmed into the piece, these texts can travel up and down or swirl around the column. By varying the height, font, intensity and direction of the words, Holzer will make the cylinder itself appear to be in motion. The result, in the artist's words, is "to create a work sensitive to the formal integrity of the museum and attuned to the experiential nature of the collection and space."
"Jenny Holzer's exciting concept for this site-specific work at the museum will add a dynamic element to the neoclassical Lincoln Gallery, and is a significant addition to the museum's collection," said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
This commission is part of the museum's ongoing commitment to contemporary art and artists through annual exhibitions, acquisitions, awards and public programs. -- www.si.edu
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