Chosen Artist: Jenny Holzer

-installation & conceptual artist

-best known for her use of the light emitting diode (LED) screen & truism series

-anonymous public works

Basic Facts:

-born on July 29, 1950, in Gallipolis, Ohio

-enrolled in Duke University’s liberal arts program in 1968 and later attended the University of Chicago from 1970 to 1971

-In 1975, she entered the master of fine arts program at the Rhode Island School of Design

-moved to New York City to participate in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, where she began her first series of public art texts

-completed her MFA in 1977

Her pieces in Agitprop:

“Between 1979 and 1982, a series of brightly colored posters anonymously appeared throughout the streets of New York City. Created by Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays appropriates writings from a variety of influential political figures, all pushing strong ideological agendas that are never explicitly named. Confronting passersby with this polemical language from unattributed sources, the intervention was intended to provoke awareness of the innumerable manipulative messages received in public spaces and, simultaneously, the ongoing need for ideas encouraging social change, or even revolution.”

About her work:

-Media employed in Holzer’s practice vary. Writing is programmed into electronic signs; printed on posters and t–shirts; carved in stone benches, floors, and sarcophagi; cast as bronze and aluminum plaques; or etched on silver.

-Her statements have appeared on billboards, movie marquees, automobiles, in news magazines, and on websites, as well as being projected onto facades, walls, water, and mountainsides.

-Holzer’s recent use of text ranges from silk-screened paintings of declassified government memoranda detailing prisoner abuse, to poetry and prose in a 65-foot wide wall of light in the lobby of 7 World Trade Center, New York.

-Holzer’s work has been shown in exhibitions worldwide, including Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland.

-First public series: Truisms, consisting of provocative one-line aphorisms confronting the viewer through the unsettling element of truth in each proclamation, such as “men are not monogamous by nature” and “money creates taste”

-her work is often compared to Barbara Kruger’s

-she has exhibited work in numerous cities around the world

Themes/Sociopolitical issues:

-love

-marriage

-politics

-inequality

-ignorance

-death

-truth

-peace

-war

Public Collections

-Museum of Modern Art, New York,NY

–Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

-Tate Collection, London, England

-San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

-Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Why I chose to research her:

-I was moved by the whole idea of exhibiting written statements and images that stated what was simply not talked about in society.

-Her braveness inspires me

-She uses tactics that are a big part of visual culture

-Her creations in some way are revelations

-She chooses to create art upon sociopolitical issues

-her courage to be anonymous

-I love the combination between text and visuals

-She had an exhibit in  Monterrey Mexico where I grew up in.

Projections in different cities:

Sources:

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/agitprop

http://projects.jennyholzer.com/projections/san-diego-2007/gallery#6

http://www.artnet.com/artists/jenny-holzer/biography

http://www.cheimread.com/artists/jenny-holzer/gallery/selected-works