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WexCast: Elizabeth Weiser on Jenny Holzer

Dec 23, 2019

Ohio State professor of English Elizabeth Weiser stands with her arms folded in a gallery covered floor to ceiling with text by artist Jenny Holzer during a gallery talk at the Wexner Center for the Arts

For this WexCast, we're sharing a November talk by Elizabeth Weiser in the galleries covered floor to ceiling by the work of Jenny Holzer. The Ohio State Department of English professor explores the language Holzer shares in her series of Truisms and Inflammatory Essays, on view as part of HERE, as well as the reactions they spur, and how a museum setting provides important context for the words Holzer initially wheat pasted on the streets of New York City. Weiser also discusses the work in relation to her most recent book, Museum Rhetoric: Building Civic Identity in National Spaces.

"We are all being asked many times in museum exhibits to stop and think in more complex ways. Sometimes we don't like it. Sometimes we don't get it. I know I certainly don't get it many times—including, for this non-art professional, many times at the Wex. But the museum makes me stop and think. It gives me the space mentally and physically to be OK with not getting it."