Jenny Holzer calls Paris school protests 'gruesome' as Orsay show opens

Artist Jenny Holzer says it is “gruesome” that schoolchildren in France have to fight for clean schools and properly paid teachers.

She made the comment in an interview with T: The New York Times Style Magazine, held to mark her solo show — an exhibition devoted to one artist — at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, according to secondary coverage by ARTnews.

“It’s gruesome that kids have to fight for a better education or for teachers to be paid properly, for their schools to be clean,” Holzer said. “I worry about the kids’ safety.”

The original interview was published on 19 October under the headline “Jenny Holzer Resurrects the Past to Lament the Present.” ARTnews summarised her education remarks on 20 October under the title “Jenny Holzer on Paris Protests: ‘It’s Gruesome’”.

Her remarks follow weeks of student action across France. On 8 October, teenagers blockaded some high schools and marched through cities in nationwide protests, Reuters reported. Student unions then vowed on 9 October to keep protesting after what they called a first win.

The action continued in the capital. On 13 October, high school and university students demonstrated in Paris against education conditions and police violence. By 15 October, high school pupils had spent weeks calling for better educational conditions.

Holzer’s Orsay exhibition leans on words written long before these marches. It includes an LED panel work — text shown on light-emitting diodes — carrying an 1860 message by French writer Émile Zola: “I think of the future and see it so dark, so dark that I shrink back terrified.”

Outside the museum, scrolling text is projected onto the building’s exterior. The projections feature quotations from 30 cultural figures, including Charles Baudelaire, Vincent van Gogh and Auguste Rodin. All the quotations were drawn from the archive of the Musée d’Orsay.

Inside, a marble bench carries another borrowed line. It bears a message from American painter Mary Cassatt: “As you say the world is mad just now.”

For anyone following from afar, the connection is plain to hear. Old letters and diaries line the walls and the facade while teenagers make their own demands in the streets.