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Born 1950 Gallipolis, Ohio
Erlauf Peace Text (detail), 1995
(click image for larger view) |
It is rare to speak of someone as sui generis - one of a kind - but Jenny Holzer is without question just such an individual. In the annals of American art, she retains the singular distinction of having invented an entirely new art form, one so uniquely her own that it brooks no imitators. Her led displays are dazzling, provocative, spatial/temporal experiences residing at the intersection of art, politics, technology and poetry. At once entirely personal and entirely public, her brightly colored electronic texts range in expression from searing indictments to mordant satire and dreamy reverie — all facets of Holzer's piercing intelligence, fierce compassion and startling imagination.
Permanent installations of Holzer's work can be found at the Hamburger Kunsthalle; the Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam; the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota, Japan; Erlauf, Austria; and Nordham, Germany. She has had solo exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Dia Art Foundation, New York; the Staedtische Kunsthalle, Duesseldorf; the Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York; and elsewhere. Her Messages to the Public, organized by the Public Art Fund, was installed above Times Square, New York, in March 1982. Holzer's work has also been included in such noted exhibitions as High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture (1990-1991) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Image World: Art and the Media Culture (1989-1990) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; L'Epoque, La Mode, La Morale, La Passion (1987) at the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the 1983 Whitney Biennial. In 1990, she became the first woman to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale, where she received the Leone d'Oro, grand prize for best pavillion.
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