| Jenny Holzer |
Jenny Holzer (Gallipolis, Ohio, USA, 29 July 1950) is an American visual artist, considered one of the main exponents of the most recent trends in conceptual and public art. Her work focuses on the positioning of brief texts in urban spaces using various supports (paper, luminous LED, carved stone, video), and consists of defamiliarising the most habitual media landscapes, miming and overturning publicity devices. Typographically devoid of any calligraphic accents, the texts mainly consist of brief statements – Truisms – relating to the everyday, to power, justice and human relationships, with greater emphasis on the most recent years, war and death. The point of view, especially in the early works, is often contradictory or ambiguous, while her later works often show a greater dramatic component. Beginning in 1982 with a luminous LED installation in Times Square, she has been realising ever-more monumental works in places with a high social concentration (including some work for galleries), with the help of public and private funding. In 1990, her acclaim as an artist brought her the Golden Lion at the Biennial of Venice.
Her works imply a close relationship with space: realised to be installed in a given place, they are then exhibited in various other places; they may be created for a public place only to be exhibited later in a gallery, their meaning and intensity changing significantly depending on the context in which they are set. J. Holzer, therefore, has skilfully developed a new way of creating art, one that is provocative, with a strong impact, highly communicative, making her one of the most important artists of post-modern times. |
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