Jenny Holzer as a Contemporary Artist Essay

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Jenny Holzer was born in Ohio in 1950 and embarked on a lifetime of learning, primarily within the design and artistic fields. It was her Truism series that brought her fame as she took her art out of the context of the lengthy text, image, and interior spaces and into the streets in bold, clear, concise statements. “The ‘Truism’ dramatized a depersonalized and amoral information landscape throughout juxtapositions. Holzer has since produced a variety of texts with points of view ranging from inflammatory manifesto to feminist or parental concern to bleak resignation. In all of her work, she links ideological statements with the forms and meanings of architecture” (Stuart Collection, 1992). Although she lives and works in New York, her work is known throughout the country for its biting reflections on political issues of the day, coupled with her blatant attempt to involve the average consumer in the interaction.

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Holzer attempts to defamiliarize reality from within accepted symbolic systems. Rather than presenting images as truth, Holzer works to present words as truth by resorting to culturally adapted slogans through her abbreviated Truisms (Kukje Gallery, 2005), an exhibition she started in 1977 and which continued to be displayed as late as 1990. In the below image, the Guggenheim Museum takes on special tri-color LED displays in 1990 to display Holzer’s slogans.

Special tri-color LED displays

Holzer displays these works in the public sphere, often in locations typically occupied by commercial advertising rather than within the halls of a museum. In this respect, she challenges the idea that art must be preserved within enclosed spaces for a select few before she’s even said a word. By using many cliché-type slogans in her digitized electronic sign display, Holzer visually challenges her audience to ‘hear’ these culturally accepted sayings that have been thrown about since childhood but largely ignored. What isn’t explicitly written out, but is understood, is that one is expected to think about what these slogans mean, introducing one level of the sublime into the public sphere in which she displays her work.

This can be taken a level or two deeper by introducing the idea that perhaps not all of these slogans are considered cliché. Because she uses occasional statements such as “Extreme self-consciousness leads to perversity” (“Jenny Holzer,” n.d.) that aren’t necessarily an accepted societal view but more an individual view, Holzer also introduces the idea that although we might think we all originate from a single background, the fact is that even siblings do not live their lives with the same assumptions regarding the topics Holzer addresses.

After challenging the notion that all words in the public sphere are meaningless and that the clichés of childhood have ceased to carry wisdom, Holzer adds the idea that we are not all culturally identical and that wisdom can also be found in the words of others. However, the only words ever printed are the slogans themselves in as minimalist a form as possible with only slight changes invoice based on the limited range of the electronic board and the font styles available.

References

Guggenheim Museum. “Untitled.” Web.

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“Jenny Holzer”. (n.d.). Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Web.

Stuart Collection. (1992). “Jenny Holzer.” San Diego, CA. Web.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Jenny Holzer as a Contemporary Artist." August 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/jenny-holzer-as-a-contemporary-artist/.

1. IvyPanda. "Jenny Holzer as a Contemporary Artist." August 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/jenny-holzer-as-a-contemporary-artist/.


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IvyPanda. "Jenny Holzer as a Contemporary Artist." August 18, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/jenny-holzer-as-a-contemporary-artist/.

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