Transcript

Jenny Holzer: I’m Jenny Holzer. When I was invited to do something for Artistic License, I tried to build on my excitement at the prospect of going into storage. It’s one of my favorite things to do in museums. The great pleasure of going into storage was that it was to be about looking. Looking comes more naturally to me than thinking or talking. [Laughs.] So it was a joy to be able to go peer and have an immediate response from the eyes.

Narrator: For her presentation, Good Artists, artist-curator Jenny Holzer chose works made exclusively by female artists. In her own practice, Holzer has long used language to challenge the power structures that exclude and marginalize women. While exploring the Guggenheim’s collection, she sought out seldom-seen pieces by both well-known and underappreciated artists.

Jenny Holzer: I was curious to see what the museum had of women’s work. So I thought, “Let’s see both ones with whom I was familiar and that I’ve loved for decades, and also ones I didn’t know.” I would like to show a glorious multitude of good work. I think we found surprises as well as reassuring masterpieces.

Narrator: Holzer selected works by —including her monumental wooden wall sculpture Luminous Zag: Night—in part because the artist inspired Holzer as a child.

Jenny Holzer: When I was a kid I saw pictures of Nevelson, and that gave me some faint hope that there could be an interesting life. So [laughs] then there’s the marvelous I’ve studied for these many years, and I wanted to offer her up once again to people who come to the show.

Narrator: Holzer also chose a group of photographs by , Nan Goldin, , and Adrian Piper. Through their work, these artists have confronted gender difference and power structures represented and perpetuated in visual culture.

Jenny Holzer: I like having so many women who used photography in one way or another. That’s modern. [Laughs.] The title, Good Artists came because it was matter-of-fact and true. It’s a good challenge, to try to honor these artists by showing them as they should be.