Endgame

by Jenny Holzer

In her art, Jenny Holzer (b. Gallipolis, Ohio, 1950; lives and works in New York) looks for ways to translate language into visual objects. She relies on a variety of forms of presentation to do so; most widely known are her illuminated letters and projections. Looking for new material to work with, she came upon texts from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: government documents that had been redacted before being released to the public, including political directives, descriptions of torture methods, autopsy reports, and statements made by American officials, soldiers, and prisoners. Only partly legible because of the widespread blackening, these documents form the basis for Holzer's new pictures--after more than three decades, she returned to the art of painting in 2010. The color, size, and individual expression hark back to the artist, whereas the geometric shapes are the work of the unknown -censors- and the legible fragments of text are taken from the original documents. Holzer's subtle interventions illustrate how much there is that must not be seen. The pictures thus also function as formalist works of art that inevitably call to mind the long history of avant-garde abstraction, especially the legacy of constructivism and its idea that art may serve social purposes.

76 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2012

About the author

Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.

Holzer belongs to the feminist branch of a generation of artists that emerged around 1980, looking for new ways to make narrative or commentary an implicit part of visual objects. Her contemporaries include Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Sarah Charlesworth, and Louise Lawler.

Holzer is mostly known for her large-scale public displays that include billboard advertisements, projections on buildings and other architectural structures, as well as illuminated electronic displays. The main focus of her work is the use of words and ideas in public space. Originally utilizing street posters, LED signs became her most visible medium, though her diverse practice incorporates a wide array of media including bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches and footstools, stickers, T-shirts, paintings, photographs, sound, video, light projection, the Internet, and a Le Mans race car.

Holzer wrote texts herself for a long time between 1977 and 2001. However since 1993, she has been mainly working with texts written by others. Some of these are literary texts by great authors such as the Polish Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska, Henri Cole (USA), Elfriede Jelinek (Austria), Fadhil Al-Azawi (Iraq), Yehuda Amichai (Israel) and Mahmoud Darwish (Palestine). She also uses texts from different contexts, such as passages from de-classified US Army documents from the war in Iraq. For example, a large LED work presents excerpts from the minutes of interrogations of American soldiers who had committed human rights violations and war crimes in Abu Ghraib, making what was once secret public. Holzer's works often speak of violence, oppression, sexuality, feminism, power, war and death. Her main concern is to enlighten, bringing to light something thought in silence and meant to remain hidden.