“I would like there to be less fear and less cruelty. I’ll stand on that.”
Conceptual art to live by
For more than forty years, Jenny Holzer has presented her astringent ideas, arguments and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions, including Times Square, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her medium, whether a T-shirt, plaque or electronic sign, is writing, and the public dimension is integral to her work. Starting in the 1970s with street posters in New York City and continuing through her recent light projections on landscape and architecture, her practice has rivalled ignorance and violence with humour, kindness and...
Bio
Jenny Holzer (she/her) was born in 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio. She lives and works in New York City.
Trailblazers
Holzer belongs to a trailblazing cohort of feminist artists who emerged in the early 1980s, with contemporaries such as Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Sarah Charlesworth and Louise Lawler.
Accolades
Jenny received the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award in 1996, the rank of officier in France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, the US State Department’s International Medal of Arts in 2017 and Time magazine’s Time 100 Award in 2024. She holds honorary degrees from Williams College, the Rhode Island School of Design, the New School and Smith College.
