JENNY HOLZER
MARCH 2014 - MAY 2014 LOS ANGELES, CA
JENNY HOLZER
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JEN HO
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NNY OLZER
ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Jenny Holzer’s medium is text or the written word. She was born in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1950. She received her BA from Ohio University, an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and honorary doctorates from the University of Ohio, the Rhode Island School of Design, and New School University. She uses language to provoke a response in her viewer, her work often blends in with the advertising in public spaces but its content violates the viewer’s expectations. When she first started using wordsas her medium she wrote her own short sentences she liked to call truisms, but ever since 1993 she has used other people’s words. She does this by using other’s words she can enlighten people by bringing something to light that was supposed to hidden. She is able to stimulate public discussions about violence, sexuality, oppression, human rights, feminism, power, war, and death. She uses projectors to display her borrowed words on buildings and rivers, she also uses LED screens, painted signs, plaques, photographs, sound, video, and the internet. She says that the reason she uses words as her medium is because, “I wanted to offer content that people—not necessarily art people—could understand.” Holzer has also has written seven books and had a dance project called “Holzer Duet…Truisms” and the series took place at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.
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Jenny Holzer became well known in 1977 when she created Truisms, which were “one liners” that she printed out and handed out at random and pasted to buildings, walls, and fences around the Whitney Independent Study Program, which she was attending at the time. A few of her more famous truisms are “abuse of power comes as no surprise” and “protect me from what I want”. She wrote about 255 truisms between 1978 and 1983. The “abuse of power comes as no surprise” was even displayed on a big screen in Times Square.
A few of the important events at the time she rose to fame were the New York Blackout, President Carter pardons the draft jumpers from the Vietnam War period, and the World Trade Center in New York was finished. Later Holzer would have her art displayed in the World Trade Center, the piece was a 65 foot wide wall LED screen that ran prose about how great it was to be in New York. Jenny Holzer’s work has played a big part in culture because she puts her work out in public and in your face. Her work makes people think, the truisms are things that people sometimes think but are never said aloud, and her use of other people’s words makes you rethink the way you had originally thought about them. She affects our culture by revealing the truths that no one wants to say or even that some people don’t want to hear. Her use of borrowed words are unusual because she isn’t looking for recognition, because she isn’t even using her own works, she is just trying to get the word out there. Like when she used the private government documents that had been finally released to the public, she put some out there for the words to be read and see the things that happened. She also made some pages huge so that the words would overwhelm you, and she used the LED screen that scrolled words across it to make it seem like there was too much sadness to even bear it. Holzer’s works are meant to educate and teach others about things they were otherwise oblivious to or things that they would rather not listen to. Her art speaks more to people than other artists’ works because it has something to say and it wants you to hear it. In the picture which has the truism “abuse of power comes as no surprise” is on a big screen in Times Square. I believe the meaning of the truism is that people who have power always start to abuse it and test their limits of how far they can go. Eventually everyone abuses their power if they have it, it is in history that
“ I used language because I wanted to offer content that people — not necessarily art people — could understand.” this happens. So she is saying don’t be surprised when it happens because it has happened throughout history. In the picture which has the trusim “your oldest fear are the worst ones” is also on a big screen in Times Square. I believe the meaning of the truism is more obvious than the other one. I think it means that the fears that you had when you were little are always going to be your worst ones because you had so long to think about it and worry about it that you start exaggerating your fear. So you kind of set it up on a pedestal, you believe that you will never be able to get over it because it was so scary when you were little and it traumatized you. So you have the fear of trying to get over that fear.
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