The Living Series
Humanity’s disgusting nature exhibited
Ashley Sudeta
Everyone loves Spoonbridge and Cherry. It’s large, simple, and ridiculously adorable. You have to smile when you see the iconic statue; cherry glinting in the sun, ducks huddling under the spoon’s bowl. But I don’t always like to smile. On particularly angsty days, I want to see art that recognizes and speaks to the sourest parts of my soul. Minneapolis Sculpture Garden has art pieces for those days. I push through the tourists and stop at the edge of the path leading toward the beloved Spoonbridge and Cherry. Here is a row of granite benches. The seat of each is engraved with eerie statements. These aren’t just benches, they’re selections from Jenny Holzer’s “The Living Series.”
Jenny Holzer is a conceptual artist who works with words and ideas. Her installations include phrases printed, projected, engraved, or electronically displayed in public places. Holzer’s work is cutting. It speaks honestly about all aspects of the human experience: the disgusting inequality of politics, awkward discomfort of bodies, inevitable fear and pain, and crushing amount of effort required for anything good to occur. She seldom bothers with pointless optimism.
The statements on each bench are seemingly random—there is no secret order to read them in. However, “The Living Series” is held together by themes of bodies, fear, danger, and enmity. We are animals made of fragile flesh, but are driven to irrationality in fights for power within our social system. We are physical, sitting on the bench, but also complex and cerebral, reading the engraving.
One bench reads “You can make yourself enter somewhere frightening if you believe you'll profit from it. The natural response is to flee, but people don't act that way anymore.”
It’s nice to look at pretty things, but that’s not the only way to enjoy art. Sometimes I crave reassurance that others notice how disturbing the world is. I’m not imagining it, there’s something disgusting lurking beneath the surface of every interaction.