Jenny Holzer
1 collaboration
Holzer is best known for her Truisms, which encapsulate difficult ideas in pithy phrases like “ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE.” Experimenting with text across diverse media, she deploys these phrases in the form of immersive installations, LED displays, billboards, posters, plaques and condom wrappers. Tirelessly drawing attention to human suffering through subjects like the AIDS crisis, the wars in Yugoslavia and the Middle East, and school shootings in America, Holzer presents powerful words from a multitude of perspectives. The accessibility of her work is key. It is not simply what she is saying, but how, where, and when it is said. Her iconic billboard in Times Square is a poignant example of her ability to put the machinery of contemporary mass media to artistic use. Camouflaged among the superficially seductive advertisements and news tickers of the Manhattan cityscape, unexpected sentiments like “PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT” invite us to question the power structures that shape our world.
