'For the Capitol': Illuminated Reflections on the Potomac

Holzer's whole family is artistic. She is married to painter Mike Glier, and their 19-year-old daughter, Lili Holzer-Glier, is now a budding photographer at New York University.

"When I was a little kid, I had no interest in whatever international, groundbreaking project my mother was working on," Holzer-Glier says. "I just wanted her to come home."

By age 8, Holzer-Glier had already burned out on the art world and she started to boycott museums. ("She put her foot down in Berlin," her mother recalls.) She wanted to see the zoo, not Titian, Holzer-Glier says.

The rebellious streak might be inherited. Her mother's recent works challenge authority, especially her "Redaction" series. Holzer presented brightly colored, silk-screened paintings of declassified government documents, some detailing military torture. It's her daughter's favorite installation.

"I wish more art offered . . . crucially important information with such aesthetic elegance," Holzer-Glier says.

Some may remember the series from 2004, when Holzer projected the documents onto the Gelman Library at George Washington University.

"Redaction" is part of an artistic transition that began in 1996. Holzer now quotes other people in her art rather than supplying the text herself.

"I like being an editor better," she says. "And an artist better."

David Breslin, an art history graduate student at Harvard University, helped Holzer search for the Kennedy and Roosevelt quotes, scanning hundreds of pages. He was looking for passages that would resonate as much as they did when they were written, says Breslin, 28.

A sample from Kennedy: "The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings."

Holzer made the final cuts and sequenced the quotes. She wouldn't elaborate on a political agenda for her projections but did say that "it wouldn't be bad if some of the deciders see it."

She loves working near bodies of water. The text doubles and sometimes triples in size because the words scrolling on the trees reflect on the water. She's looking forward to seeing what the Potomac can do. Rivers and other environmental factors can enhance or kill a Holzer projection. Enhance: A dust storm in a canyon in Mexico created a swirl of words and letters. Kill: Fog in Liverpool, England, shut down an installation.

An ongoing project titled "Street Scenes: Projects for DC," organized by curators Halpern and Welmoed Laanstra, helped bring Holzer to the District. Holzer's "For the Capitol" will be the fifth installment in the series; past projects have included a Yoko Ono installation and bulldozers performing ballet as part of a piece called "Pas de Dirt." "Street Scenes" projects are designed to bring free (and often unexpected) art to the public.

Staging the light show required a fistful of permits from the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Park Service, the Harbor Patrol and others.

For those who miss this weekend's installation, there is more Holzer art in Washington's future. Last month, Elizabeth Broun, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, announced that the museum had commissioned Holzer to create a cylindrical column of light and text in the museum's Lincoln Gallery. The text will draw from four previous projects, including "Truisms." Holzer plans to install "For SAAM" in October.

So is Holzer worried about the thunderstorm threat tomorrow? She answers with a Roosevelt quote about nature.

"Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."

For the Capitol is on view 7-midnight, tonight through Sunday. 2700 F St. NW. Free. 202-467-4600.