Video: My Favorite Artwork | Jenny Holzer

My name is Jenny Holzer. I’m an artist. [MUSIC PLAYING] A favorite artwork of mine is Louise Bourgeois’s “Fillette.” I adore it. To quote Bourgeois, “Everything I loved had the shape of the people around me, the shape of my husband, the shape of the children. So when I wanted to represent something I loved, I obviously represented a little penis.” I first started knowing about and looking at Louise’s work in the 1980s. I met Bourgeois when I was invited to her house many decades ago. Louise and I had a long conversation about the absolute necessity of getting color right. There was a bright red wax ear on the table in front of us. So we talked about the brutality but the necessity of red, arterial blood for one. Some of my work has to do with phallic enterprises and wars. I never have strung a phallus though. I’m in Bourgeois’s former house in Chelsea. I have yet to see “Fillette” anywhere but in photographs. It’s a big day today. [MUSIC PLAYING] Behold! And it has a friend. This is a poignant memorial. [MUSIC PLAYING]