Jenny Holzer

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(b Gallipolis, OH, 29 July 1950). American installation and conceptual artist. Her studies included general art courses at Duke University, Durham, NC (1968-70), and then painting, printmaking and drawing at the University of Chicago before completing her BFA at Ohio University, Athens (1972). In 1974 she took summer courses at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, entering its MFA programme in 1975 and beginning her first work with language, installation and public art. Holzer moved to New York in 1977. Her first public works, Truisms (1977-9), appeared in the form of anonymous broadsheets pasted on buildings, walls and fences in and around Manhattan. Commercially printed in cool, bold italics, numerous one-line statements such as 'Abuse of power comes as no surprise' and 'There is a fine line between information and propaganda', were meant to be provocative and elicit public debate. Thereafter Holzer used language and the mechanics of late 20th-century communications as an assault on established notions of where art should be shown, with what intention and for whom. Her texts took the forms of posters, monumental and electronic signs, billboards, television and her signature medium, the LED (light emitting diode) sign. Other works appeared on T-shirts, tractor hats, stickers, metal plaques, park benches and sarcophagi. The LED signs have been placed in high-impact public spaces such as Times Square, New York, as well as in art galleries and museums.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

An American Neo-Conceptualist artist, Jenny Holzer (born 1950) utilized the homogeneous rhetoric of modern information systems in order to address the politics of discourse. In 1989 she became the first female artist chosen to represent the United States at Italy's Venice Biennale.

Jenny Holzer was born July 29, 1950, in Gallipolis, Ohio, into a family of two generations of Ford auto dealers. She completed her undergraduate degree at Ohio University in Athens after attending Duke University and the University of Chicago. While enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, Holzer experimented with an abstract painting style influenced by the color field painters Mark Rothko and Morris Louis. In 1976 she moved to Manhattan, participating in the Whitney Museum's independent study program.

Language as Art

Holzer's conception of language as art, in which semantics developed into her aesthetic, began to emerge in New York. The Whitney program included an extensive reading list incorporating Western and Eastern literature and philosophy. Holzer felt the writings could be simplified to phrases everyone could understand. She called these summaries her "Truisms" (1978), which she printed anonymously in black italic script on white paper and wheat-pasted to building facades, signs, and telephone booths in lower Manhattan. Arranged in alphabetical order and comprised of short sentences, her "Truisms" inspired pedestrians to scribble messages on the posters and make verbal comments. Holzer would stand and listen to the dialogues invoked by her words.

The participatory effect and the underground format were vital components of Holzer's "Truisms" and of her second series, the "Inflammatory Essays, " which laconically articulated Holzer's concerns and anxieties about contemporary society. Holzer printed the "Essays" in alphabetical order, first on small posters and then as a manuscript entitled The Black Book (1979). Until the late 1980s, Holzer refused to produce them in any non-underground formats because of their militant nature. Her declarative language assumed particular force and violence in the multiple viewpoints of the "Essays, " ranging from extreme leftist to rightist.

Holzer initiated the "Living Series" in 1981, which she printed on aluminum and bronze plaques, the presentation format used by medical and government buildings. "Living" addressed the necessities of daily life: eating, breathing, sleeping, and human relationships. Her bland, short instructions were accompanied with paintings by the American artist Peter Nadin, whose portraits of men and women attached to metal posts further articulated the emptiness of both life and message in the information age.

Art and Technology

The medium of modern computer systems became an important component in Holzer's work in 1982, when nine of her "Truisms" flashed at forty-second intervals on the giant Spectacolor electronic signboard in Times Square. Sponsored by the Public Arts Fund program, the use of the L.E.D. (light emitting diode) machine allowed Holzer to reach a larger audience. By combining a knowledge of semantics with modern advertising technologies, Holzer established herself as a descendant of the conceptualist and pop art movements. She again utilized the electronic signboard with her "Survival Series" (1983-1985), in which she adopted a more personal and urgent stance. The realities of everyday living, the dangers, and the underlying horrors were major themes. Correlating with the immediacy of the messages, Holzer adopted a slightly less authoritarian voice. Her populist appropriation of contemporary "newsspeak" crossed the realm between visual art and poetry and carried a potent expressive force. Her attempt to make sense out of contemporary life within a technological framework also suggests the limitations of the information age, in which the world of advertising consumes everything, yet an underlying message no longer exists.

After the "Survival Series, " Holzer's installations became more monumental in scale and more quasi-religious. Her "Under a Rock" exhibition combined the modern media of the communications industry, the electronic signboard, with marble benches printed in the block letters used in national cemeteries. The language measured angst and violence with the apathetic reportage of the most seasoned news personae: CRACK THE PELVIS SO SHE LIES RIGHT, THIS IS A MISTAKE. WHEN SHE DIES YOU CANNOT REPEAT THE ACT, etc. The vivid juxtaposition between horrifying subject matter and the authoritarian voice, coupled with flashing diodes and cold marble, jars the spectator with its apparent paradox and brutal insistency. By utilizing the pronoun "she, " Holzer allied the victimization with the female. The new urgency of the "voice" in Holzer's "Under a Rock" installation, first exhibited in 1986 at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York, revealed a Holzer more overtly building images that suggest male power and control over women.

The birth of her first child in 1989 inspired Holzer's "Laments, " perhaps the most personal and angst-ridden series she had done. The "Laments" address motherhood, violation, pain, torture, and death in the voices of "thirteen assorted dead people" (J. Holzer). The personae range in sex and age, yet a common insistency permeates their disembodied words. One passage suggests infanticide: IF THE PROCESS STARTS I WILL KILL THIS BABY A GOOD WAY. The contradictions inherent to the rhetoric, "to kill" but in "a good way, " shape the negations and arbitrariness of contemporary linguistics. Holzer accessed the language structure and media of contemporary politics and advertising in order to reveal the tensions and male domination apparent in the contemporary linguistic system.

Virtual Art

The multimedia extravaganzas of Holzer's later installations, such as the 1989 Guggenheim exhibition, are exemplified by a 535-foot running electronic signboard spiraled around the core of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, flashing garish lights on the monumental stone benches arranged in a large circle on the floor below. In 1989 also, she became the first female artist chosen to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, the international art world's premiere event. For the Biennale, Holzer designed posters, hats, and t-shirts to be sold in the streets of Venice, while her L.E.D. signboards and marble benches occupied the solemn and austere exhibition space. Her words were translated into multiple languages in order to communicate to an international audience. Despite the fact that she had won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Biennale, Holzer also started to draw more negative reactions to her work. The size and expense of her exhibits, as well as her growing popularity in the art world, led some to accuse her of becoming elitist.

Holzer withdrew from the art world for a few years and then returned in 1993 with a fresh approach to her work and a new emphasis on the immaterial. In October of 1993 she partook in a virtual reality exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum. The following year she produced her next series, "Lustmord, " which opened at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York. The title is taken from a German word that means murder plus sexual pleasure. She was inspired by the violence of the war in Bosnia, formerly a republic of Yugoslavia. In 1996 she participated in the First Biennale of Florence. By accepting multivalent formats for her media-conscious verbal imagery, Holzer created a populist art of expressive and poetic force.

Further Reading

A number of important exhibition catalogs provide analysis and excellent color reproductions of Holzer's works. See especially Michael Auping's Jenny Holzer: the Venice Installation (1991) and Diane Waldman's Jenny Holzer (1989), the exhibition catalog for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Earlier catalogs include the 1986 Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center's Jenny Holzer and Cindy Sherman: Personae; the Israel Museum's Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger (Jerusalem, 1986); and the Knight Gallery's Holzer. Kruger. Prince (Charlotte, N.C., 1984-1985).

Additional Sources

Howell, John. "Jenny Holzer: The Message Is the Medium." ARTnews (Summer 1988): 122-127.

Schwartzman, Allan. "After Four Years, The Message is Murder." New York Times, 8 May 1994.

Snider, Ben. "Jenny Holzer: Multidisciplinary Dweeb." Art and Design 9 (Summer 1994): 17-19.

Taylor, Paul. "Jenny Holzer: I Wanted To Do A Portrait of Society." Flash Art 151 (March/April 1990): 116-119.

Teixeira, Kevin. "Jenny Holzer: Virtual Reality: An Emerging Medium." Art and Design 9 (Summer 1994): 9-15.

Turner, Jonathan. "Transporting Truisms." ARTnews (January 1997): 29.

Wei, Lilly. "Jenny Holzer." Art in America (September 1991): 126-127.

Quotes:

"Sloppy thinking gets worse over time."

Jenny Holzer
The third phase of Holzer's For the City, projected on the Fifth Avenue side of the New York Public Library, October 6-9, 2005
Birth name	Jenny Holzer
Born	1950 (1950) Gallipolis, Ohio
Nationality	American
Field	Conceptual art
Training	Rhode Island School of Design

Installation in lobby at 7 WTC

Jenny Holzer (born 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio) is an American conceptual artist. She attended Ohio University (in Athens, Ohio), Rhode Island School of Design, and the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Holzer was originally an abstract artist, focusing on painting and printmaking; after moving to New York City in 1977, she began working with text as art. She was an active member of the artist's group Colab.

The main focus of her work is the use of words and ideas in public space. Originally utilizing street posters, LED signs became her most visible medium, though her diverse practice incorporates a wide array of media including bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches and footstools, stickers, T-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, sound, video, light projection and the Internet.

Contents 1 Works 2 Quotes 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

Works

• Truisms (1977–)^[1] is probably her most well-known work. Holzer has compiled a series of statements and aphorisms ("truisms") and has publicised them in a variety of ways: listed on street posters, in telephone booths, and even, in 1982, or on one of Times Square's gigantic LED billboards.

• Inflammatory Essays (1978–79), in which she brought texts influenced by Trotsky, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, and Emma Goldman onto the streets
• Living Series (early 1980s), using more monumental media such as bronze plaques and billboards
• Survival Series (1983–1985), with more militant aphorisms, including "Men Don't Protect You Anymore," a phrase reproduced on condoms and street billboards alike
• Under a Rock
• Lament
• Child Text, a piece on motherhood for the 1990 Venice Biennale
• Green Table (1992), a large granite picnic table with inscriptions, part of the Stuart Collection of public art on the campus of the University of California, San Diego
• Please Change Beliefs (1995)^[2], created for the internet art gallery adaweb^[3].
• Installation for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) Permanent Installation, located off the main room of the Guggenheim Bilbao, with tall LED columns of text in English (red, on the front side) and Basque (blue, on the back side).
• Protect Me From What I Want, The 15th iteration of the famous BMW Art Car Project. Painted on the BMW V12 LMR, the aforementioned refrain is written in metal foil, outlined with phosphorescent paint. In addition, the phrase "You are so complex, you don't respond to danger" is written on the cars sidepods. The car was withdrawn from the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans, but saw active competition for the 2000 Petit Le Mans, finishing fifth overall.
• Terminal 5 In 2004, the dormant Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center (now Jetblue T5) at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) briefly hosted an art exhibition called Terminal Five,^[4] curated by Rachel K. Ward^[5] featuring the work of 18 artists.^[6] Holzer's work displayed electronically on the terminals original departure-arrival board — Holzer had wanted the work projected onto the building's exterior, but airport officials denied the request, noting they could interfere with runway operations.^[5]
• For the City (2005), nighttime projections of declassified government documents on the exterior of New York University's Bobst Library, and poetry on the exteriors of Rockefeller Center and the New York Public Library in Manhattan ^[7]
• The Black Garden of Nordhorn, the artist was commissioned to redesign a memorial to the fallen of Germany’s three previous wars, including World War II. Next to the existing monolithic monument, she designed a circular garden consisting of concentric rings of plantings and pathways.^[8]
• For the Capitol (2007), nighttime projections of quotes by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt about the role of art and culture in American Society. Projected from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts onto the Potomac River and Roosevelt Island in Washington DC. ^[9]
• Redaction Paintings (2008), reproduced recently released declassified memos with much of the text blacked out by censors.

“

"The works with declassified material are from my sometimes frantic (witness the number of paintings) worrying about the war and the attendant changes in American society. There is an unusually close connection between this artwork and my private politics, as there was with the “Lustmord” pieces [about genocidal rape in the former Yugoslavia], for example."[10]

”

Quotes

• "Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid."
• "The most profound things are inexpressible."
• "Lack of charisma can be fatal."
• "Sloppy thinking gets worse over time."
• "There's something about light that's right for these terrible subjects. It's a way of having beauty let you come closer than you might otherwise."

See also

Detail of 7 WTC installation

• Barbara Kruger
• Martin Firrell
• Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular

References

1. ^ Truisms
2. ^ Please Change Beliefs
3. ^ Adaweb
4. ^ "TWA Terminal Named as One of the Nation’s Most Endangered Places". Municipal Art Society New York, February 9th, 2004. http://mas.org/twa-terminal-named-as-one-of-the-nations-most-endangered-places/. 
5. ^ ^{a b} "A Review of a Show You Cannot See". Designobvserver.com, Tom Vanderbilt, January 14, 2005. http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=2897. 
6. ^ "Now Boarding: Destination, JFK". The Architects Newspaper, September 21, 2004. http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=098&PagePosition=5. 
7. ^ Jenny Holzer's For the City
8. ^ Udo Weilacher, In Gardens: Profiles of Contemporary European Landscape Architecture. Boston: Birkhäuser, 2005.
9. ^ 'For the Capitol': Illuminated Reflections on the Potomac
10. ^ Buchloh, Benjamin. To Whom It May Concern. Modern Painters, November 2008.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jenny Holzer

• Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBS series Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century - Season 4 (2007).
• “Jenny Holzer Protect Protect” Donna De Salvo (curator at the Whitney Museum ) discusses the PROTECT PROTECT exhibition on video. Chanel Thirteen (PBS, NYC) Sunday Arts program. 6 and a half mins.
• Jenny Holzer at Cheim & Read gallery, New York.
• Ground Zero’s Saving Grace Metropolis Magazine - Installation at 7 World Trade Center
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum installation
• Please Change Beliefs Visitors to the website are allowed to evaluate and modify a selection of Holzer's Truisms.
• Blue light special of a different kind tells a good story post-gazette.com - July 20, 2005
• Article with photos about Holzer's light projections in London
• Jenny Holzer in the Video Data Bank
• Walleston, Amiee (April 20, 2009). "Now Showing | Jenny Holzer". The New York Times TMagazine. http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/now-showing-jenny-holzer/. Retrieved 2009-04-20. 
• "Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT". Whitney Museum of American Art. March 12–May 31, 2009. http://whitney.org/www/holzer/index.jsp. Retrieved 2009-04-20. 
• zingmagazine Project "Declassified" curated by Melanie Flood in issue #20

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