In an interview conducted earlier this month, after the first large-scale demonstrations in Paris, Jenny Holzer addressed the protests that have continued to roil the city in the weeks since. “It’s gruesome that kids have to fight for a better education or for teachers to be paid properly, for their schools to be clean,” the artist told T: The New York Times Style Magazine. “I worry about the kids’ safety.”
The occasion for the interview was Holzer’s solo show at Musée d’Orsay, which includes an LED panel work that bears a message penned by the French writer Émile Zola in 1860: “I think of the future and see it so dark, so dark that I shrink back terrified.”
A different part of the show features scrolling text projected on the museum’s exterior, including quotations from 30 cultural figures such as Charles Baudelaire, Vincent van Gogh, and Auguste Rodin, and other parts include paintings and sculptures bearing inscriptions, such as a marble bench with a message from artist Mary Cassatt: “As you say the world is mad just now.”
About the quotations she worked with, which came from the archive of the Musée d’Orsay, Holzer told T: “The shock was how contemporary the issues are. And a warm surprise was how companionable the writing is. Sometimes they’re talking about being devastated; other times they’re making bad jokes, pontificating, being vulnerable. It’s like, ‘Oh, hi there. Thank you for passing the time with me.’”