Jenny Holzer: YOUVOTE 2020

About

In anticipation of the 2020 U.S. presidential and congressional elections, Jenny Holzer Studio is mobilizing a series of artworks in key areas through the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania that will champion broad political engagement, issue awareness, and voter empowerment.

Foregrounding the voices of citizens and activists and privileging get-out-the-vote efforts by joining with established organizations, the project employs a range of media, including fleets of LED vehicles, light projections, billboards, T-shirts, and social media activations. Content will be drawn from texts authored by many, centered on issues of social and economic justice, gun control, climate change, gender and racial equality, immigration, voting rights, and the erosion of fundamental democratic pillars such as truth, the rule of law, and government accountability.

The selected quote by Sojourner Truth is particularly poignant and timely in relation to not only the election and raising awareness of social justice, but also Holzer’s own practice of reflecting on truth in her work.

For the past several months, MMoCA’s Henry Street windows displayed murals created by local artists following recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations downtown. The murals were removed and are being preserved by the city of Madison.

Other YOUVOTE artworks in the coming weeks will include banners on bridges over Park Street and Campus Drive, LED boards on trucks, and artwork on city utility boxes. Original texts for these additional installations will be supplied by UW-Madison First Wave scholars.

UW-Madison students, working with Henrique Nardi, an instructor of Graphic Design for the UW Madison Art Department, will project a topical quote, chosen by Jenny Holzer, onto the museum boards just after dark on Friday. The quote then will be stenciled and painted by UW-Madison art students Austen Wallenfang, Eury Kim, Gayatri Visvanathan, Kaylene Yong, Madeleine Freitag, Nicole Golownia, and Yuheng Chen.