jenny holzer
DESCRIPTION
Artist PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Artist Presentation
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer was born in Gallipolis, Ohio. She studied at Duke University in North
Carolina where she originally wanted to pursue abstract painting.
She then went onto traditional painting, printmaking and drawing at the University of Chicago.
Holzer took summer courses at The Rhode Island School of Design where she entered into their MFA program in 1975.
In 1974, she moved to Manhattan and participated in the Whitney Museum's independent study program, which expanded her art and began her first exploration with language as art.
Holzer belongs to a feminist generation of artists that emerged in the 1980s.
She is mostly known for her large scale public displays. Such as billboards, signs, and illuminated projections.
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"
These, appeared as anonymous sheets that she printed black script onto and wheat-pasted the sheets of paper onto buildings, walls and fences around the city.
Her Truisms allowed pedestrians to scribble messages on the posters and make verbal comments. Holzer would stand and listen to the conversations that her art had started.
The interactions with the art was what Holzer was really trying to achieve with these pieces.
The main purpose of her work was displaying ideas in a public space.
She moved on from street posters to LED signs.
In 1982, for the first time Holzer installed a large electronic sign on the Spectacolor board in Times Square. This piece was sponsored by the Public Art Fund program. This was part of her Survival series which speaks to the great pain, delight, and ridiculousness of living in contemporary society
The birth of her first child inspired her series "Laments," one of her most personal and honest collections. The "Laments" address motherhood, violation, pain, torture, and death.
Holzer withdrew from the art world and then returned in 1993. In October of 1993 she partook in a virtual reality exhibit at the famed Guggenheim Museum.