Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, projections on buildings and other structures, and illuminated electronic displays. Holzer belongs to the feminist branch of a generation of artists that emerged around 1980, and was an active member of

Colab Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. History Colab members came together as a collective in ...

during this time, participating in the famous '' The Times Square Show''.

Early life and education

Holzer was born on July 29, 1950 in

Gallipolis, Ohio Gallipolis ( ) is a chartered village in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Gallia County. The municipality is located in Southeast Ohio along the Ohio River about 55 miles southeast of Chillicothe and 44 miles northwest of Charlesto ...

. Originally aspiring to become an abstract painter,Edward Lewine (December 16, 2009)
Art House
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. her studies included general art courses at Duke University in

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

, North Carolina (1968–1970), and then painting, printmaking and drawing at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

before completing her BFA at

Ohio University Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subseq ...

, Athens, Ohio (1972). In 1974, Holzer took summer courses at the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, and entered its MFA program in 1975.Jenny Holzer
Tate Collection, London. She moved to Manhattan in 1976, joined the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

's independent study program and began her first work with language, installation and public art. She also was an active member of the artists group

Style, form and media

Holzer is known as a neo-conceptual artist. Most of her work is presented in public spaces and includes words and ideas, in the form of

word art Word art or text art is a form of art that includes text, forming words or phrases, as its main component; it is a combination of language and visual imagery. Overview There are two main types of word art: *One uses words or phrases because o ...

(also known as text art.). The public dimension is integral to Holzer's work. Her large-scale installations have included advertising billboards, projections on buildings and other architectural structures, and illuminated electronic displays. LED signs have become her most visible medium, although her diverse practice incorporates a wide array of media including street posters, painted signs, stone benches, paintings, photographs, sound, video, projections, the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, T-shirts for

Willi Smith Willi Donnell Smith (February 29, 1948 – April 17, 1987) was an American fashion designer. At the time of his death, Smith was regarded as one of the most successful African-American designers in the fashion industry. His company, WilliW ...

, and a race car for BMW. Text-based light projections have been central to Holzer's practice since 1996. From 2010, her LED signs started becoming more sculptural. Holzer is no longer the author of her texts, and in the ensuing years, she returned to her roots by painting. Holzer’s only uses capital letters in her work and frequently words or phrases are italicized. She has stated before that this is because she wants to “show some sense of urgency and to speak a bit loudly." Holzer belongs to the feminist branch of a generation of artists that emerged around 1980, looking for new ways to make narrative or commentary an implicit part of visual objects. She was an active member of

during this time, participating in the famous '' The Times Square Show''. Other female contemporaries include

Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

Sarah Charlesworth Sarah Edwards Charlesworth (March 29, 1947 – June 25, 2013) was an American conceptual artist and photographer. She is considered part of The Pictures Generation, a loose-knit group of artists working in New York in the late 1970s and early ...

, and

Louise Lawler Louise Lawler (born 1947) is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York.Louise Lawler ...

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied a ...

(March 12, 2009)
Sounding the Alarm, in Words and Light
''

''. The subject of Holzer’s work often relates to feminism and sexism. Her work discusses heavy subjects such as sexual assault against women. She has said that she gravitates towards subjects such as this due to family dysfunction she has experienced and because she claims “we don’t need work on joy.”

Works

Holzer's initial public works, ''Truisms'' (1977–79), are among her best-known. They first appeared as anonymous broadsheets that she printed in black italic script in capital letters on white paper and wheat-pasted to buildings, walls and fences in and around Manhattan. These one-liners are a distillation of an erudite reading list from the Whitney Independent Study Program, where she was a student. She printed other ''Truisms'' on posters, T-shirts and stickers, and carved them into stone benches. In late 1980, Holzer's mail art and street leaflets were included in the exhibition ''Social Strategies by Women Artists'' at London's

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...

, curated by

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...

. In 1981, Holzer initiated the ''Living'' series, printed on aluminum and bronze plaques, the presentation format used by medical and government buildings. The ''Living'' series addressed the necessities of daily life: eating, breathing, sleeping, and human relationships. Her bland, short instructions were accompanied by paintings by 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. ''Inflammatory Essays'' was a work consisting of posters Holzer created from 1979 to 1982 and put up throughout New York. The statements on the posters were influenced by political figures including Emma Goldman,

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

, and

Mao Tse-tung Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (P ...

. In 2018 an excerpt from that work was printed on a card stitched onto the back of the dress Lorde wore to the

Grammys The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

; the excerpt read, "Rejoice! Our times are intolerable. Take courage, for the worst is a harbinger of the best. Only dire circumstance can precipitate the overthrow of oppressors. The old & corrupt must be laid to waste before the just can triumph. Contradiction will be heightened. The reckoning will be hastened by the staging of seed disturbances. The apocalypse will blossom." Others at the Grammys wore white roses or all-white clothes to express solidarity with the Time's Up movement; Lorde wrote, "My version of a white rose — THE APOCALYPSE WILL BLOSSOM — an excerpt from the greatest of all time, jenny holzer." The medium of modern computer systems became an important component in Holzer's work in 1982, when the artist installed her first large electronic sign on the Spectacolor board in New York's

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

.Jenny Holzer, ''Untitled'' (1990)
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna. Sponsored by the

Public Art Fund Public Art Fund is an independent, non-profit arts organization founded in 1977 by Doris C. Freedman. The organization presents contemporary art in New York City's public spaces through a series of highly visible artists' projects, new commissions, ...

program, the use of

light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (co ...

s (LEDs) allowed Holzer to reach a larger audience. The texts in her subsequent ''Survival'' series, compiled in 1983-85, speak to the great pain, delight, and ridiculousness of living in contemporary society. She began working with stone in 1986; for her exhibition that year at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York, Holzer introduced a total environment where viewers were confronted with the relentless visual buzz of a horizontal LED sign and stone benches leading up to an electronic altar. Continuing this practice, her installation at the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

in 1989 featured a 163-meter-long sign forming a continuous circle spiraling up a parapet wall. In 1989, Jenny Holzer released the ''Laments'' series to the

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumb ...

in New York; this installation consisted of columns of colored lights and carved marble and granite tops that made up the laments. Holzer uses the passages she had read while being a part of the Whitney Independent Study Program by simplifying them for public consumption and applying them to her phrases. This series not only provokes thought in her audience through the constant reminder of death and sorrow but also exposes them to sources they normally wouldn’t come across. In an interview Holzer mentions that she uses the first person “I” simply to give the impression that a dead person is speaking and therefore make the installation more interesting to her audience. In ''Laments'' Jenny gave a voice to 13 different dead individuals, to say everything they might not have gotten the opportunity to while alive. She touches on topics like motherhood, violation, pain, torture, and even death on a personal level to these 13 individual
.
Although ''Laments'' focuses mostly on the darkness of humanity and the tragedies we face daily there is also hidden optimism in the 13 laments. In 1989, Holzer became the second female artist chosen to represent the United States at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in Italy (

Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (; née Nemerov; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
" The New York ...

was the first, shown posthumously in 1972). At the 44th Biennale in 1990, her LED signboards and marble benches occupied a solemn and austere exhibition space in the American Pavilion; she also designed posters, hats, and T-shirts to be sold in the streets of Venice. The installation, ''Mother and Child'', won Holzer the Leone D'Oro for best pavilion. The original installation is retained in its entirety in the collection of the

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

in Buffalo, the organizing institution for the American Pavilion at the 1990 Biennale. After taking a break from the art world, Holzer returned with controversy in 1993. Holzer came out with her ''Lustmord'' series, taking the title from the German word meaning "sex murder". Holzer created the series as a response of the Bosnian War, specifically the widespread rape and murder of women. The work feature three poems that retell sex crimes from the perspective of the victim, the observer, and the perpetrator. ''Lustmord'' has taken many different forms from texts written in blue, black, and red ink on the skin, to the ''Lustmord'' Table, a series of different bones of the body laid on a wooden table, with silver bands wrapped around them, engraved with the text of the three poems. While Holzer wrote the texts for the bulk of her work between 1977 and 2001, since 1993, she has mainly been using texts written by others, including literary texts from such authors as Polish Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska,

Henri Cole Henri Cole (born 1956) is an American poet, who has published many collections of poetry and a memoir. His books have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Arabic. Biography Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, to an Amer ...

(USA),

Elfriede Jelinek Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors writing in German today and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-vo ...

(Austria), Fadhil Al Azzawi (Iraq),

Yehuda Amichai Yehuda Amichai ( he, יהודה עמיחי; born Ludwig Pfeuffer 3 May 1924 – 22 September 2000) was an Israeli poet and author, one of the first to write in colloquial Hebrew in modern times. Amichai was awarded the 1957 Shlonsky Prize, the ...

(Israel),

Mahmoud Darwish Mahmoud Darwish ( ar, محمود درويش, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine ...

(Palestine), Khawla Dunia (Syria), and Mohja Kahf (Syrian American). As of 2010, Holzer's work has been focused on government documents, concerning Iraq and the Middle East. Using texts from a very different context, more recent projects have involved the use of redacted government documents and passages from declassified U.S. Army documents from the war in Iraq. For example, a large LED work presents excerpts from the minutes of interrogations of American soldiers accused of committing human rights violations and war crimes in Abu Ghraib prison — making what was once secret public and exposing the "military-commercial-entertainment complex." Holzer's work often concerns violence, oppression, sexuality, feminism, power, war and death; the artist often utilizes the rhetoric of modern information systems to address the politics of discourse. Her main aim is to enlighten, illuminating something thought in silence and meant to remain hidden. Critic Samito Jalbuena has written that the artist's public use of language and ideas often creates shocking juxtapositions — commenting on sexual identity and gender relations (“Sex Differences Are Here To Stay”) on an unassuming New York movie theater marquee, for example — and sometimes extends to flights of formal outrage (such as “Abuse Of Power Comes As No Surprise” in lights over Times Square).

Selected works

* ''Living Series'' (early 1980s), using monumental media such as bronze plaques and billboards. * ''Under a Rock'' (1986), a series juxtaposing electronic messages with poetic phrases etched on stone benches and sarcophagi. * ''Laments'' (1989), a multi-media installation at the

featuring 13 stone

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...

. * ''Da wo Frauen sterben, bin ich hellwach'' (1993), cover photograph and portfolio in edition number 46 of '' Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin''. * ''Please Change Beliefs'' (1995), an interactive work created for the internet art gallery adaweb, incorporating several of the artist's ''Truisms''. * ''Protect Me From What I Want'', the 15th work commissioned for the BMW Art Car Project. Painted on a

BMW V12 LMR The BMW V12 LMR is a Le Mans Prototype built for sports car racing from 1999 to 2000. The car was built through an alliance between BMW Motorsport and Williams F1, and was the successor to the failed BMW V12 LM of 1998. It is famous for earning ...

, the titular refrain is written in metal foil and outlined with phosphorescent paint. Phrases written on the car's side-pods are "You are so complex, you don't respond to danger" and "The unattainable is invariably attractive". The car's rear wing reads "Lack of charisma can be fatal" and "Monomania is a prerequisite of success". The car was withdrawn from the

1999 24 Hours of Le Mans The 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 67th 24 Hours of Le Mans, and took place on 12 and 13 June 1999. The race had a large number of entries in the fastest Le Mans Prototype classes, with Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Lola Cars, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, ...

race, but saw active competition in the 2000

Petit Le Mans The Petit Le Mans (French for ''little Le Mans'') is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, USA. It uses the rules established for the 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which ...

in the U.S., finishing fifth overall. * '' Terminal 5'' — In October 2004, the dormant

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

-designed

TWA Flight Center The TWA Flight Center, also known as the Trans World Flight Center, is an airport terminal and hotel complex at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). The original terminal building, or head house, operated as a terminal ...

(now Jetblue T5) at

John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...

hosted an art exhibition called ''Terminal 5'', curated by Rachel K. Ward and featuring the work of 18 artists. Holzer's work was displayed electronically on the terminal's original departures-arrivals board. She had wanted the work projected onto the building's exterior, but airport officials denied the request, saying the projection could interfere with runway operations. * ''For the City'' (2005), nighttime projections of declassified government documents on the exterior of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Bobst Library The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library ( ), often referred to simply as Bobst Library or just Bobst, is the main library at New York University (NYU) in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The library is located at 70 Washington Square South between LaGuardi ...

, and poetry on the exteriors of

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span th ...

and the

New York Public Library Main Branch The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, commonly known as the Main Branch, 42nd Street Library or the New York Public Library, is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. ...

in Manhattan This work has been cited as a significant example of

. * ''For Singapore'' (2006), projection on

City Hall, Singapore The City Hall in Singapore is a national monument gazetted on 14 February 1992. It can be found in front of the historical Padang and adjacent to the Supreme Court of Singapore, it was designed and built by the architects of the Singapore Munic ...

on the occasion of the

Singapore Biennale The Singapore Biennale is a large-scale biennial contemporary art exhibition in Singapore, serving as the country’s major platform for international dialogue in contemporary art. It seeks to present and reflect the vigour of artistic practices in ...

2006 * ''For the Capitol'' (2007), nighttime projections of quotes by Presidents

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

and

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

about the role of art and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

American society The society of the United States is based on Western culture, and has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, ...

. Projected from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts onto the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...

and Roosevelt Island in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

* ''I Was In Baghdad Ochre Fade''*, (2007), Oil-on-linen transcriptions of torture documents from the Iraq War; part of the

Renaissance Society The Renaissance Society, founded in 1915, is a leading independent contemporary art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago, with a focus on the commissioning and production of new works by international artists. The kunsthalle- ...

2007 group show, "Meanwhile, In Baghdad…" * ''For SAAM'' (2007), Holzer's first cylindrical column of light and text, created from white electronic LEDs and featuring texts from four of the artist's series — ''Truisms'', ''Living'' (selections), ''Survival'' (selections) and ''Arno''; commissioned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. * ''Redaction Paintings'' (2008), reproducing declassified memos, with much of the text blacked out by censors. * ''For Leonard Cohen'' (2017)'','' a series of large-scale light projections on Silo no 5, one of Montréal's most iconic architectural structures., created in conjunction with the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition ''Leonard Cohen – A Crack in Everything.'' The installation featured phrases from

Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...

’s poems and songs, projected in both French and English for five nights only, starting on November 7, the first anniversary of Cohen's death, through November 11, 2017.

Permanent displays

* ''IT TAKES A WHILE BEFORE YOU CAN STEP OVER INERT BODIES AND GO AHEAD WITH WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO DO. From The Living Series '' (1989), twenty-eight white granite benches with inscriptions, part of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden * ''Installation for Aachen'' (Selections from the ''Truisms'' and other series) (1991), Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany * ''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 The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

* ''Installation for Schiphol'' (1995), permanent installation at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam, the Netherlands * ''Erlauf Peace Monument'' (1995), outdoor installation with texts memorializing lives lost and peace gained in World War II in Erlauf, Austria * ''Allentown Benches'' (Selections from the ''Truisms'' and ''Survival'' series) (1995), United States Courthouse, Allentown * ''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) * ''Oskar Maria Graf Memorial'' (1997), Literaturhaus, Munich * ''Ceiling Snake'' (1997), 138 electronic LED signs with red diodes over 47.6 meters, permanently installed at the

Hamburger Kunsthalle The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. The museum consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaa ...

* ''Bench'' (From the ''Survival'' Series of 8 benches) (1997), bench made of green marble at the Faulconer Gallery,

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...

; Portuguese inscription: NUM SONHO VOCE ENCONTROU UM JEITO DE SOBREVIVER E SE ENCHEU DE ALEGRIA. (IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY.) * ''Truisms'' selections on permanent LED displays and carved into stone benches outside of Gordy Hall on the campus of

, Athens, Ohio, installed 1998 * There is a permanent LED sign along the top of the Telenor building in Oslo, Norway, installed in 2002. * ''Untitled'' (1999), installation for Isla de Esculturas, Pontevedra, Spain * ''Blacklist'' (1999), permanent installation composed of 10 stone benches with engraved quotes from ''

The Hollywood Ten ''The Hollywood Ten'' is a 1950 American 16mm short documentary film. In the film, each member of the Hollywood Ten made a short speech denouncing McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklisting. The film was directed by John Berry. After being na ...

'' located in front of the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

's Fisher Museum of Art * ''Historical Speeches'' (1999), 4-sided electronic LED sign with amber diodes, permanently installed at the Reichstag, Berlin; the piece displays a selection of speeches given in the Reichstag and

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

, and plays for 12 days without repeating itself * 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. * ''Installation for the U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building, Sacramento'' (1999), a collection of statements on law, justice, and truth gathered from various sources and inscribed on 99 paving stones on the ground floor of the Robert T. Matsui United States Courthouse in Sacramento, CA. * ''Wanås Wall'' (2002), inscriptions on stones on the grounds of

Wanås Castle Wanås Castle (; sv, Wanås slott) is an estate in Östra Göinge Municipality, Scania, in southern Sweden. It is situated to the west of Knislinge, approximately north of Kristianstad. Wanås exhibitions Since 1987, contemporary art with a fo ...

, Knislinge, Sweden * ''Serpentine'' (2002), electronic LED sign with blue diodes, permanently installed at the Toray Building, Osaka * ''Untitled'' (2002), installation at

University of Agder The University of Agder ( no, Universitetet i Agder), formerly known as Agder College and Agder University College, is a public university with campuses in Kristiansand and Grimstad, Norway. The institution was established as a university co ...

, Gimlemoen, Norway * '' 125 Years'' (2003), a site work at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, celebrating 125 years of women at University of Pennsylvania * ''For Pittsburgh'' (2005), Holzer's largest LED project in the United States boasting 688 feet of blue LED tubes attached to two edges of the roof of the

David L. Lawrence Convention Center The David L. Lawrence Convention Center (DLLCC) is a convention, conference and exhibition building in downtown Pittsburgh in the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is served by two exits on Interstate 579. The initial David L. Lawrence ...

, Pittsburgh * ''For Elizabeth'' (2006), permanent outdoor work for the

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

campus consisting of twenty backless and armless granite benches, inscribed with the poetry of alumna and Pulitzer Prize-winner

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Awar ...

* ''For 7 World Trade'' (2006), permanent LED installation in the 65-foot-wide, 14-foot-high wall in the lobby of 7 World Trade Center * ''For Novartis'' (2006/07), permanent LED installation at

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loc ...

HQ, Basel, Switzerland * ''For MCASD'' (2007), permanent LED installation on the façade of the Copley Building at

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission of ...

Downtown * ''VEGAS'' (2009), LED installation commissioned for the parking lot of

Aria Resort & Casino Aria Resort and Casino is a luxury resort and casino, part of the CityCenter complex on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. Aria consists of two curved glass and steel highrise towers adjoined at the center. It opened on December 16, 2009 a ...

, Las Vegas * ''Bench'' (2011), marble bench at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

; English inscription: "Stupid people shouldn’t breed." / "It’s crucial to have an active fantasy life." * ''715 Molecules'' (2011), commissioned installation at

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

consisting of a 16 ½ -foot long and 4-foot wide stone table and four benches, the surfaces of which have been sandblasted with 715 unique molecules * New York City AIDS Memorial (2016), granite pavers with lines from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" * ''For Philadelphia'' (2018), permanent installation at the

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, Philadelphia, PA

Mixed media screen prints

At the

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...

in 2007, Holzer presented a series of mixed media silk-screen prints; each of the 15 same-size, medium-large canvases, stained purple or brown, bears an all-black, silk-screened reproduction of a PowerPoint diagram used in 2002 to brief President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and others on the United States Central Command's plan for invading Iraq. Holzer found these documents at the Web site of the independent, nongovernmental National Security Archive (nsarchive.org), which obtained them through the

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

, and has used them as source material for her work since 2004. Other paintings depict confessions or letters from prisoners of all kinds and their families (parents pleading that the Army discharge rather than court-martial their sons); autopsy and interrogation reports; or exchanges concerning torture, as well as prisoners’ handprints and maps of Baghdad. The censor's marks are unmodified and the large sections of obscured text leave only sentence fragments or single words, echoes of the original content.Jenny Holzer: THE FUTURE PLEASE, September 13 - November 3, 2012
L&M Arts, Los Angeles. Holzer concentrates on documents that have been partially or almost completely redacted with censor's marks. Based on a declassified report on US special forces' activity at a base in

Gardez , settlement_type =City , image_skyline =gardez_paktya.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption =The Bala Hesar fortress in the center of Gardez City , image_flag = , flag_size = , image_sea ...

, Afghanistan, a 2014 series of paintings explores the story of Jamal Nasser, an 18-year-old Afghan soldier who died in US military custody.

Dance

Holzer's first dance project was in 1985, “Holzer Duet … Truisms” with Bill T. Jones. In 2010, she collaborated with choreographer Miguel Gutierrez for the Co-Lab series at the

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple na ...

. There were 10 dancers who performed in a room in which Holzer's words were projected along the walls.

Publications by Holzer

* ''A Little Knowledge'' (1979) * ''Black Book'' (1980) * ''Hotel'' (with Peter Nadin, 1980) * ''Living'' (with Nadin, 1980) * ''Eating Friends'' (with Nadin, 1981) * ''Eating Through Living'' (with Nadin, 1981) * ''Truisms and Essays'' (1983) Jenny Holzer
Guggenheim Collection. * ''The Venice Installation'' (1990) * ''Die Macht des Wortes ='' (2006)

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions of Holzer's work have been held in institutions such as the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, New York (2009), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008). Other solo shows include

, London (1988);

, New York (1989);

, New York (1989); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1991);

, Hamburg (2000); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2001, 2011); Barbican Art Gallery, London (2006); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2010), and DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art (2010). She has also participated in documenta, Documenta 8, Kassel (1987), as wells in group exhibitions in major institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum, Den Bosch, The Nederlands, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Holzer will participate in the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012). According to the website for the 2015 'Dismaland' art installation led by Banksy, Holzer contributed works to the project. Holzer had several solo exhibitions in the past several years. In 2014 her work was in ''Jenny Holzer: Projecto Parede'' at the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) of São Paulo in Brazil in 2014 as well as ''Jenny Holzer: Dust Paintings'' at Cheim & Read in Chelsea, New York which exemplified her use of government documents as a source for her work. In 2015 she was in ''Jenny Holzer: Softer Targets'' at the Hauser & Wirth, Somerset in Bruton, UK which featured new work and other pieces from the past three decades. Also in 2015 she had a solo exhibition at the Barbara Kreakow Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts as well as ''War Paintings'' at Museo Correr in Venice, Italy. Then in the winter of 2016-17 at Alden Projects in New York, Holzer had the solo exhibition ''REJOICE! OUR TIMES ARE INTOLERABLE: Jenny Holzer’s Street Posters, 1977-1982'', which showed her language-based posters that were pasted on the streets of New York. ''Jenny Holzer and Christian Lemmerz: Lust'' was an exhibition on view from February 2017 to May 2017 at the Randers Kunstmuseum in Randers, Denmark. Holzer was also featured in the exhibition ''Woman Now'' at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia, on view from January 2017 to April 2017; her work was shown alongside Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, among others, in the exhibition ''Creature at The Broad'' in Los Angeles California from November 2016 to March 2017. In February 2017 she was also in the ''Palm Springs Popup'' exhibition at Ikon, Ltd., in Santa Monica alongside artists such as Richard Prince, Ellsworth Kelly, and Bruce Nauman. From January 2017 through February 2017 she was in the ''Fischl, Holzer, Prince, Salle, Sherman'' exhibition at the Skarstedt Gallery in Chelsea, New York. Also, in the summer of 2016, Holzer was included in ''THE EIGHTIES: A Decade of Extremes'' exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp in Belgium which explored the New York art scene in the eighties. In 2018, Holzer had the exhibition ''Artist Rooms: Jenny Holzer'' at Tate Modern in London. She has the entire second floor of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (nine galleries) from March 22 to September 9, 2019 for "Zera deskribaezina" (It is irreversible). Holzer is one of six artist-curators who made selections for ''Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection'', on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from May 24, 2019 through January 12, 2020.

Recognition

In addition to winning the Golden Lion for her work at the 1990 Venice Biennale, Holzer has received several other prestigious awards, including the Art Institute of Chicago's Blair Award (1982); the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan Medal for Installation (1994); the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum (1996); the Berlin Prize fellowship (2000); the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Order of Arts and Letters diploma of Chevalier from the French government (2002) and the List of Barnard College people, Barnard Medal of Distinction (2011). In 2010, Holzer received the Distinguished Women in the Arts Award from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). The annual award – recognizing women for their leadership and innovation in the visual arts, dance, music, and literature – is a bronze plaque originally designed by the artist in 1994, featuring one of her ''Truisms'': “It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.” Holzer also holds honorary degrees from

, the

, The New School, and Smith College. In 2018 she was selected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Personal life

In the early 1980s Holzer bought a farm in Hoosick, New York. and began dividing her time between there and a loft on Eldridge Street in Manhattan. She sold the loft in the late 1990s but still maintains a studio in Brooklyn.Kiki Smith (May 2012)
Jenny Holzer
''Interview (magazine), Interview''. Her private art collection includes works by Alice Neel, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, and Louise Bourgeois.

References

External links

*
Replica of the Truisms signage shown at Dismaland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holzer, Jenny 1950 births Living people American conceptual artists Women conceptual artists Rhode Island School of Design alumni Ohio University alumni Feminist artists People from Gallipolis, Ohio American multimedia artists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Performance art in New York City Artists from Ohio People from Hoosick, New York 20th-century American women artists Franklin Furnace artists Honorary Members of the Royal Academy 21st-century American women artists Artists from New York (state) American feminists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters