jenny holzer:
Blacklist

“This garden would have you think how hate and fear can poison daily life. It is a monument to the First Amendment and a memorial to the creative artists and others who became victims of the cold war. Blacklisting ended careers and ruined lives. It silenced public debate, undermined due process and freedom of thought, and weakened the elaborate protections of the minority that safeguard American liberty.”

In October of 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed ten filmmakers to testify about their alleged subversive political beliefs. After these “Hollywood Ten” refused to testify, exercising their First Amendment Privileges, they were cited for contempt of Congress, for which they were ultimately imprisoned and blacklisted – prevented from gainful employment – by the Hollywood studios and broadcast networks. By 1951, as a result of ongoing Congressional hearings, hundreds more were blacklisted, harassed, or driven from their jobs, and in some cases from their homes.

The First Amendment/Blacklist Project Committee was formed by faculty members of the Filmic Writing Program in the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles at the suggestion of an undergraduate student in response to a recognition that many future film-makers knew little or nothing of this governmental infringement on professional creativity and personal civil liberties. The committee convened to commission a work of art in a public setting to remember the blacklisting and intimidation of creative artists, teachers, and countless other citizens during the McCarthy Era of the 1940s and 1950s. A roster of artists working in the field of public art was invited to submit proposals. The committee’s final choice was unanimous.

Jenny Holzer’s work is represented in museums, public spaces, and private collections throughout the world. Holzer addresses herself to the public forum and envisions her audience as the public at large. Part poet and part sculptor, Holzer has combined text and form to create a sculptural environment in a garden setting that resonates with unsettling meaning. Her research into the period generated hundreds of quotes from which she chose the dozens that have been inscribed in stone to remind us of that past and to inspire vigilance and personal responsibility in exercising, upholding and defending the civil liberties granted to individuals under the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

The planting design was created by Professor Achva Benzinberg Stein, FASLA.

Blacklist, 1999. A Public Work by Jenny Holzer. Collection of Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California. This work is a gift of The First Amendment/Blacklist Project Committee.