You Are a Victim of the Rules You Live By

Knowing we might cut things close coming back from our road trip, I wanted to head out to the airport and claim my return ticket before we set off. Having changed my departure date from the dreaded 9-11 to the following Wednesday, I needed to pick up my new paper tickets. At the airport I saw this:

This is art. No really. It's like museum quality stuff.

This reminded me of a tortured tale from my younger days. It was during one glorious spring in the wilds of Ohio University that I decided perhaps my current relationship was best broken. I beg you sensitive readers to forgive my youthful callousness, but the springtime spell of the college campus beckoned and my playful soul was ready to burst forth upon the greens like a rapidly budding branch. Of course, this required parting from my equally playful companion L. As these things go, it wasn't such an enjoyable springtime for L, who had to suffer the consequences of my will to wander. This was compounded by the fact that she was then force to serve her student art teacher duties in the Gallia County School district, my home county. Thus, by the time summer arrived, L was quite ready for some time away from Southeastern Ohio and its painful memories. So, being the intellectual artist (I do have good taste dear reader) and having a stepfather in the airline industry, L decided that she would head off to New York City and repair her soul at the famous New York City Museum of Modern Art, where paintings and sculptures would lift her spirits and inspire her own art with new creativity. Instead, the cruel fates treated her to an installment of crap art like this:

No, not the block of granite, the display.

Well, the words on the display actually.

Here is how I recall L retelling it later (We're dear friends now, of course): "We walked into the museum and I'm all excited about the possibilities and the first thing I see is all these giant LED displays everywhere, scrolling sayings and phrases that are supposed to make you think, like "The future is stupid". Well that got old before we even paid our entrance fee. But it wasn't until we'd paid that I realized that the other halls and exhibits were locked off, and that the entire museum was given over to the work of this one artist whose medium was flashing words. That was bad enough, but it wasn't until I was reading over her biography that the proverbial kick in the crotch came in."

Some of you astute readers may have already guessed from the artist's name "Holzer" where her origins might lie. She's from my hometown of Gallipolis Ohio. Her father built the hospital where my mother worked and 80% of Gallipolis was born (the rest really were born in barns, so forgive the open doors). You can imagine that for one trying to avoid reminders of that low-brow local, the irony was lost on L. "It was like I had been given balls for the sole purpose of having them kicked. I wanted to puke. It ruined the whole trip really."

I should take this opportunity to thank L for not kicking me square in the nads when I unabashedly laughed my ass off upon hearing this a few years later. Of course, I realized that my fellow gods had punished her for making off with my favorite toothbrush sometime during that spring, but that's a tale for another time. (But be warned mortal, there are no such things as coincidences!)

In any case, Jenny Holzer has an exhbit titled 'XX' of her truisms (like the title of this entry) at the Vienna MAK museum/art gallery through October. Sorry, didn't get a chance to check out her temporary LED graffiti, as we were headed south to Slovenia.