Book Description
Now in Paperback~Jenny Holzer gained widespread recognition when texts from her Truisms series appeared on a vast electronic advertising board overlooking Times Square. Throughout her career, Holzer has intrigued audiences by placing her provocative messages in unexpected contexts, including posters, metal plaques, stone benches, electronic signs, television spots and Web sites. Her canny melding of the mediums of mass culture with an unadorned, emphatic language is perfectly attuned to an age of advertising slogans, headlines and sound bites. Yet despite the very public nature of much of her work, Holzer has also created more intimate pieces for display in galleries and museums. Her stunning installation at the 1990 Venice Biennale was awarded first prize and brought the artist international acclaim, proving that Holzer's art is equally compelling wherever it is shown--in a setting calculated to reach the masses or in the most rarefied art spaces. This book features a complete collection of the artist's writings, up to and including her 1996 text for a monument in Erlauf, Austria, accompanied by color photography of the entire range of her installations and projects. In an insightful essay and a lively interview with the artist, Diane Waldman traces the history of Holzer's series of writings and the varied environments in which they have appeared. The volume is rounded off with a chronology, exhibition history and bibliography. Essays by Diane Waldman and Jenny Holzer. Paperback, 9.5 x 11 in./144 pgs / 64 color 17 BW0 duotone 0 ~ Item D20391
Card catalog description
This revised and greatly expanded edition of the book originally published on the occasion of Holzer's celebrated exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1989 is a comprehensive document of the artist's career. A complete collection of the artist's writings, up to and including her 1996 text for a monument in Erlauf, Austria, is accompanied by color photography of the entire range of Holzer's installations and projects.
Jenny Holzer ANNOTATION
79 illustrations, 35 in full color, 116 pages, 11 x 10".
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Jenny Holzer has been at the forefront of American art since the early 1980s, and since winning first prize at the 1990 Venice Biennale her fame has spread worldwide. This revised and expanded edition of Abrams' 1989 retrospective book on Holzer has been brought up to date to span her entire career, with additional texts, including all of the artist's writings, and new color photos of recent works. 175 photos, 150 in color.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Holzer has achieved international stature and will represent the U.S. in the 1990 Biennale at Venice. She adapts mass-marketing media--printed T-shirts, billboards, LED displays--with subversive texts that challenge the authority of these media as well as the messages they transmit; the artist simulates their language and form in order to dislocate her viewers (sample statement: ``The family is living on borrowed time''). This catalogue, which accompanies an exhibit at Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum, successfully demonstrates Holzer's varied settings: color and black-and-white photographs show her words emblazoned in unlikely areas, from Times Square to baggage carousels at airports. Unfortunately, Guggenheim deputy director Waldman's artspeak essay will generate no enthusiasm from the unconverted. Similarly, her interview with Holzer is more a showcase for Waldman's expertise than a forum for the artist. ( Mar.)
Art & Photography
Book Info
