This essay originally appeared on the Art21 Blog
From "Torture of Women" by Nancy Spero, Siglio Press, 2010. Photos courtesy National Gallery of Canada.
ART21: How did the collaboration between you two start?
COLE: We met in Berlin. We were both fellows. Is that right?
HOLZER: We were fellows, yes . . .
COLE: . . . at the American Academy in Berlin. And we lived on the third floor of a great, big, old, rambling house . . . next to each other? Maybe there was a room or two...
ART21: How did you decide on the text for the World Trade Center piece?
HOLZER: I was invited to make something for the lobby at 7 World Trade Center. After much stewing, I came up with the idea of doing text in the wall—not memorial text but text about the joy of being in New York City. I despaired of writing for the piece, as...
ART21: Why did The Rwanda Project take you much longer to make than any of your other projects?
JAAR: It was my most difficult project. That’s why The Rwanda Project lasted six years. I ended up doing twenty-one pieces in those six years. Each one was an exercise of representation. And—how can I say this—they all failed. But I...
"For us, the idea of having a work that has contradictions is very important—when, in affirming something, it includes itself and attacks itself. How can you put together all of these things that have nothing to do with each other? You use glue! Glue can be an idea, a word. You can use an ideological glue."
