Jenny Holzer

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Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer For the City.jpg
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 (1950-07-29) July 29, 1950 (age 62)
Gallipolis, Ohio
Nationality American
Field Conceptual art
Training Rhode Island School of Design
Installation in lobby at 7 WTC

Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950)[1] is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.

Holzer is mostly known for her large-scale public displays that include billboard advertisements, projections on buildings and other architectural structures, as well as illuminated electronic displays. 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, the Internet, and a Le Mans race car.

Contents

Selected works [edit]

Permanent displays [edit]

  • 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
  • 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
  • Installation for Schiphol (1995), permanent installation at Schiphol Airport Authority, Amsterdam, Holland
  • Erlauf Peace Monument (1995), 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
  • Bench (From the Survival Series of 8 benches) (1997), bench made of green marble at the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College; 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.)
  • There is a permanent LED sign along the top of the Telenor building in Oslo, Norway, installed in 1999
  • Untitled (1999), installation for Isla de Esculturas, Pontevedra, Spain
  • Blacklist (1999), permanent installation located in front of the University of Southern California'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, 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.[11]
  • Wanås Wall (2002), inscriptions on stones on the grounds of Wanås Castle, Knislinge, Sweden
  • Serpentine (2002), electronic LED sign with blue diodes, permanently installed at the Toray Building, Osaka
  • Untitled (2002), installation at University of Agder, Gimlemoen, Norway
  • 125 Years (2003), a site work at the University of Pennsylvania, 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, Pittsburgh
  • For Elizabeth (2006), permanent outdoor work for the Vassar College campus consisting of twenty backless and armless granite benches, inscribed with the poetry of alumna and Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Bishop[12]
  • 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 HQ, Basel, Switzerland
  • VEGAS (2009), LED installation commissioned for the parking lot of Aria Resort & Casino, Las Vegas
  • Bench (2011), marble bench at Barnard College; English inscription: "Stupid people shouldn’t breed." / "It’s crucial to have an active fantasy life."[13]
  • 715 Molecules (2011), commissioned installation at Williams College 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[14]

Paintings [edit]

At the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007, Holzer presented a series of silk-screen paintings; 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, and has used them as source material for her work since 2004.[15] 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.[16]

“ "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."[17] ”

Dance [edit]

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.[18]

Books [edit]

Holzer has also published several books, including 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); and Truisms and Essays (1983).[19]

Exhibitions [edit]

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 in New York in 2009, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2008. Other solo shows include Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1988); Dia Art Foundation, New York (1989); Guggenheim Museum, New York (1989); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1991); Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2000); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2001, 2011); Barbican Art Gallery, London (2006); and BALTIC, Gateshead (2010). She has also participated in Documenta 8, Kassel (1987), as wells in group exhibitions in major institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum, Den Bosch in The Nederlands, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[20] Holzer will participate in the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012).[21]

Jenny Holzer is represented in New York by Cheim & Read, and in Paris by Galerie Yvon Lambert.[22]

Recognition [edit]

Jenny Holzer was the first woman to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale in 1990, and for her pavilion she was awarded the Leone D'Oro that year. She has been the recipient of several important awards, including the Blair Award, presented by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1982, the Skowhegan Medal for Installation (1994), the Berlin Prize Fellowship (2000), and a diploma of Chevalier from the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government (2002).[19] In 2010, Holzer was given the MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts; Holzer had designed the bronze plaque in the early 1994, which features one of the artist’s truisms: “It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.”[23]

See also [edit]

Detail of 7 WTC installation

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Jenny Holzer". Art HIstory Archive: Biography & Art. Retrieved April 5, 2013. 
  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. 
  5. ^ a b "A Review of a Show You Cannot See". Designobvserver.com, Tom Vanderbilt, January 14, 2005. 
  6. ^ "Now Boarding: Destination, JFK". The Architects Newspaper, September 21, 2004. 
  7. ^ Jenny Holzer's For the City
  8. ^ 'For the Capitol': Illuminated Reflections on the Potomac
  9. ^ "Meanwhile, In Baghdad..." at the Renaissance Society
  10. ^ Jenny Holzer, For SAAM (2007) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
  11. ^ Udo Weilacher, In Gardens: Profiles of Contemporary European Landscape Architecture. Boston: Birkhäuser, 2005.
  12. ^ Jenny Holzer’s Granite Ode to Elizabeth Bishop Honors Vassar President Vassar College.
  13. ^ Sharon Elizabeth Samuel (April 8, 2011), Ms. Wright Remembers: Barnard Alumna Donates Her Holzer New York Observer.
  14. ^ Williams Installs Artwork by Jenny Holzer Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown.
  15. ^ Ken Johnson (December 26, 2007), Jenny Holzer Makes Light of Poems and Beats Swords Into Paintings New York Times.
  16. ^ Roberta Smith (March 12, 2009), Sounding the Alarm, in Words and Light New York Times.
  17. ^ Buchloh, Benjamin. To Whom It May Concern. Modern Painters, November 2008.
  18. ^ Claudia La Rocco (July 23, 2010), Her Words, His Movement, Their Collaboration New York Times.
  19. ^ a b Jenny Holzer Guggenheim Collection.
  20. ^ Jenny Holzer Skarstedt Gallery, New York.
  21. ^ http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/roundtable-announces-participants/
  22. ^ Yvon Lambert
  23. ^ MOCA AWARD TO DISTINGUISHED WOMEN IN THE ARTS HONORS CELEBRATED VISUAL ARTIST JENNY HOLZER MOCA, Los Angeles.

External links [edit]

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