Jenny Holzer

This exhibition, with work by Jenny Holzer, was originally installed in the United States Pavilion at the 44th Venice Biennale in Italy in 1990. Chief Curator Michael Auping, as United States Commissioner, organized the exhibition, which won the Leone d’Oro (Golden Lion) award for Best Pavilion.

The Buffalo installation was the first United States presentation of Holzer’s recent work and included a number of works from the Biennale installation, as well as several new works designed for the Albright-Knox’s exhibition space.

Since her first series of public art texts, TRUISMS, appeared as broadsides throughout New York in 1977, Holzer has employed the medium of language in a variety of formats to convey her artistic messages. Her texts were inscribed on Italian marble tile floors as well as on a series of light-emitting dicode (LED) signs, the electronic message boards for which she is best known. The Buffalo installation was the first United States presentation of Holzer’s work. Following the 1990 Biennale, the exhibition traveled to Städtische Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf, Germany, and to the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark.

Born in Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1950, Holzer attended Duke University and the University of Chicago before completing a bachelor of fine arts degree at Ohio University in Athens. She entered the master of fine arts program at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1975, where she began her first work with language. She enrolled in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program in 1977, and then applied her words to such media as billboards, metal plaques, television spots, t-shirts and tractor hats. Each body of Holzer’s writing speaks in a unique voice, and the voice can run effortlessly from a graffiti-based harangue to elegiac narrative. The texts, as they evolved, include: TRUISMS, 1977–1979; INFLAMMATORY ESSAYS, 1979–1982; LIVING, 1980–1982; UNDER A ROCK, 1985–1987; and LAMENTS, 1987–1989.… (mere)

Oblong parchment/translucent type paper with Holzer's work on every other leaf, with blank leaves between each work.
In the late 1970s, Holzer began anonymously posted sheets of acerbic statements in public spaces, such as “ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE” and “THE ONLY WAY TO BE PURE IS TO STAY BY YOURSELF” and “REPETITION IS THE BEST WAY TO LEARN THINGS.” This book makes reference to Holzer's "Living" series (1980-1982) in which she created bronze plaques that evoke authority and commemoration, as well as the political, cultural, social, and economic systems that create and maintain systems of order, structure, regulation, and commerce to their benefit.

"Cet Ouvrage A Ete Publie A La Demande D'Yvon Lambert A L''Occasion De L'Exposition 'Blue' De Jenny Holzer , Du 12 Septembre Au 31 Octobre 1998", "Acheve D'Imprimer Le 6 Septembre 1998 Sur Les Presses Du L'Imprimerie Du Griffon, Paris. © Jenny Holzer, Yvon Lambert © Pour Les Textes: Jenny Holzer."… (mere)

Artist's book with the reproduction of 13 texts, that were originally cut on 13 sarcophaguses installed at the Dia Art Foundation of New York from March 1, 1989 until February 18, 1990. During the exhibition, the texts were also showed as light installations, reproduced by 13 vertical LEDs, accompanied by sound of voices belonging to 10 different adults, two kids and a baby.

references: "Sand in der Vaseline : Künstlerbüucher 1980 - 2002" by Uwe Koch, Sabine Roeder, Dorothea Klein, Klaus Pohl, Melitta Kliege. Köln, Germany : Verlag der Buchandlung Walther König, 2003, pp. 122.
New York, NY: Dia Center for the Arts,… (mere)