About Jenny Holzer

Claudia Müller's worshipful mini-documentary is more superficial sketch than probing portrait of Jenny Holzer's life and work, although it does serve as a useful linear overview of Holzer's development as a conceptual artist, one who mixes pseudo-aphoristic “truisms” with electronic visual media. Following her horse-crazy Midwestern upbringing, Holzer moved to NYC in the 1970s and launched an unassuming assault on the art world by putting up posters with random maxim-like phrases carrying political overtones. Before long, she graduated to electronic signage in Times Square, where her mock-profundities—like “Protect Me From What I Want”—began to pulsate over the streets, blending in with movie marquees and flashing soft drink ads. By film's end, we see Holzer in late-career glory, producing increasingly elaborate takes on the same concept while becoming ever more indulgent in her casino-like LED visual extravagances (she even begins projecting excerpts from declassified Iraq War torture documents on urban public spaces). Unfortunately, Holzer—whose conversations with Müller are interspersed here amidst voiceover narration, interviews with colleagues and experts, and archival and contemporary footage—isn't a particularly captivating personality, displaying far more intellect than emotion. Ultimately, About Jenny Holzer feels like an exercise in ultra-serious austerity—much like Holzer's own work—with a downbeat soundtrack that samples Sonic Youth to boost its hip, modernist cachet. Optional. Aud: C, P. (M. Sandlin)