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for For Elizabeth
Object number2006.10.4
For Elizabeth
Date2006
Artist
Jenny Holzer
(American, 1950-)
CultureAmerican
MediumOne of a set of twenty Laurentian Green granite benches
Dimensions20 x 60 x 24 in. (50.8 x 152.4 x 60.96 cm)
Credit LineCommissioned by Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, in honor of Frances Daly Fergusson, President of Vassar College 1986-2006
On View
Not on viewPeriod20th c
Classification(s)
SignedSigned and dated (inscribed on bottom): JH1012 U Element 4/20
InscribedInscribed (Elizabeth Bishop poem, (Florida Revisited)?);
Change is what hurts worst; change alone can kill.
Change kills us, finally—not these earthly things.
One hates all this immutability.
BibliographyMundy, James, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center: Vassar College The History and Collection (New York: Prestel Publishing, 2007), p. 141 repr. ProvenancePurchased from the artistDescriptionThis very recent site-specific sculptural commission executed by the concep- tual artist Jenny Holzer consists of twenty dark-green granite benches, each of which is inscribed on its seat with both published and unpublished verses by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop, a member of Vassar’s class of 1934. The work was commissioned in honor of Frances Fergusson, President of Vassar College (1986–2006) on the occasion of her retirement. The benches are arranged on alternating sides of a 775-foot landscaped path that runs from the central dining facility for the campus, designed McKim, Meade, and White, to the original Main Building, designed by James Ren- wick. Drawing upon Bishop’s strong images of love, growth, beauty, and struggle, the benches serve as a metaphor for the complexities of the journey every undergraduate makes while inhabiting, as well as enriching, the Vassar landscape. As one slowly absorbs the poetry while traversing the path, one takes part in a concomitant physical, aesthetic, and intellectual journey. Holzer has worked in this stone medium since the 1980s, often inscribing them with aphorisms or truisms of her own authorship, often of strong social or political significance. She has also delivered these messages in the form of xenon projections and light emitting diode (LED) displays.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge.
To help improve this record, please email
loebcollections@vassar.edu
