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Jenny Holzer
The Survival Series: Men don't protect . . ., 1989

Artwork Info

Artwork title
The Survival Series: Men don't protect . . .
Artist name
Jenny Holzer
Date created
1989
Classification
sculpture
Medium
granite
Dimensions
17 in. × 42 in. × 18 in. (43.18 cm × 106.68 cm × 45.72 cm)
Credit
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Copyright
© Jenny Holzer / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/FC.366
Artwork status
On view on floor 5 as part of Afterimages: Echoes of the 1960s in the Fisher and SFMOMA Collections

Audio Stories

Holzer’s quiet rebellion

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transcripts

GARY GARRELS:  

…Men Don’t Protect You Anymore.

 

 

NARRATOR: 

This bench is inscribed with one of Conceptual artist Jenny Holzer’s self-described “truisms” – short, pithy statements designed to make you question your assumptions.  

 

COLLAGE OF VOICES: 

Protect me from what I want. 

Decadence can be an end in itself. 

Abuse of power comes as no surprise. 

 

GARY GARRELS:  

…Men Don’t Protect You Anymore. 

 

NARRATOR 

Curator Gary Garrels.  

 

GARRELS:  

I think Holzer’s generation in— in particular, that— that saw a shift in the relationship between the sexes, between genders; that in the seventies women felt they had to take control of their own lives. 

Carving in stone is one of the oldest ways for culture and civilization to transmit ideas and memories across generations. 

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