It has been thirty-five years since Jenny Holzer lit up the Guggenheim Museum with a blazing electronic line of LED messages that curled around the interior of Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic spiral. For many of us who saw it at the time, it is remembered as one of the most spectacular and insightful site-specific installations of the 1980s. For those who have only seen it reproduced in books or magazines, the opportunity to have a physical encounter with Holzer’s installation is a gift. The work is a transformational intervention of Wright’s famous—and famously difficult—building.
The Guest Critic is charged with suggesting a topic or theme that can be explored and debated for this special section of the Rail. On the occasion of the re-staging of Jenny Holzer’s 1989, architecturally encompassing piece at the Guggenheim, I have chosen the theme of site-specific Art. To my mind, Holzer’s Guggenheim project is one of the great site-specific works of my generation. It is also part of a larger history that has grown in some very interesting ways.