Jenny Holzer has been probing the aesthetic and political intersection of language, installation, and painting since the late 1970s. Holzer displays her own and other texts in a variety of media, including LED tickers and light projections in public spaces, confronting current events and topics such as war and sexual violence in a way that defies didacticism and challenges the viewer’s passivity. The New York-based artist has been with the gallery since 1986, first represented by Galerie Monika Sprüth, then by Sprüth Magers.
Holzer’s dialogue with the kinds of language-based conceptual art exemplified by Lawrence Weiner and Joseph Kosuth is particularly evident in early works such as Truisms (1977-1979) and Inflammatory Essays (1979-1982). For these works, the artist printed enigmatic epigrams on posters and secretly affixed them to the walls of buildings and subway stations in New York. Directed at anonymous passersby, the texts were often based on philosophical readings and struck a clear contrast to the structuralist and analytical language models favored by her predecessors.
blue Boquira quartzite bench
43.2 × 116.8 × 49.2 cm |
17 × 46 × 19 3/8 in