Jenny Holzer was born on 29th July, 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio in the United States. She was in the feminist art movement driven by neo-conceptualism, populist art; her work was frequently site specific. Holzer was one of the greatest contributors to the revolution of feminist art. She explores society’s contemporary values through the rhetoric of language. She has won many awards; recognition of her work includes the Blair Award extended by the Art Institute of Chicago. Her contribution at the Venice Biennale rewarded her with the Leone d'Oro award. Her work here gave her the status of being the first woman who represented the American Pavilion. Her artistic style used text in the visual art form, incorporated the use of poetic and expressive phrases and was prolific in nature. Holzer produced her first string of Truisms during the pursuit of her studies at New York between 1979 and 1983. These are lists of short adages that she borrows and writes. They express ideals of socially and politically conscious significance. In these she integrates her notions of universal truths and her honest opinions on the misfortunes of life. Her Truism phrases examples include, “Stupid People Shouldn’t Breed”, “Sometimes Science Advances Faster Than It Should” and “Abuse of... show more

Jenny Holzer was born on 29th July, 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio in the United States. She was in the feminist art movement driven by neo-conceptualism, populist art; her work was frequently site specific. Holzer was one of the greatest contributors to the revolution of feminist art. She explores society’s contemporary values through the rhetoric of language. She has won many awards; recognition of her work includes the Blair Award extended by the Art Institute of Chicago. Her contribution at the Venice Biennale rewarded her with the Leone d'Oro award. Her work here gave her the status of being the first woman who represented the American Pavilion. Her artistic style used text in the visual art form, incorporated the use of poetic and expressive phrases and was prolific in nature. Holzer produced her first string of Truisms during the pursuit of her studies at New York between 1979 and 1983. These are lists of short adages that she borrows and writes. They express ideals of socially and politically conscious significance. In these she integrates her notions of universal truths and her honest opinions on the misfortunes of life. Her Truism phrases examples include, “Stupid People Shouldn’t Breed”, “Sometimes Science Advances Faster Than It Should” and “Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise”. Initially Holzer put up these idioms all over the city landscape on white posters in secret. After some time she came out of her anonymity, and used more open means to display her work. She used an assortment of mediums to portray this such as significant museum installation sites, fashion apparel and billboards in the city. She incorporated the use of colorful LED signs that come under the gamut of modern information systems, thereby reinventing her signature semantics in order to display her text. The urgency of advertising is brought to mind and the purity of the minimalists is implied with her stirring phrases mixed with her bold lines. Her ensuing work has a violent or religious characteristic frequently. These pieces of art have been displayed on electronic signboards, marble benches and bronze plaques. Regardless of the medium she employed to display her thoughts, her words incite academic debate and meaningful dialogue. Jenny Holzer’s works of art include: Truisms created in 1983 part of the collection at the Museum of Contemporary, Art, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.; Truisms created in 1984 part of the Tate Collection, London, England; I Am a Man created in 1987 part of the collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, U.S.; Laments (I Want to Live ... ) created in 1989 part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, U.S.; The Living Series created in 1989 part of the collection at the Walker Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.; Untitled (Selections from Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments, and Child Text) created in 1990 part of the collection at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, U.S.; 0.T. created in 1991 part of the collection at Ludwig Forum fUr Internationale, Kunst, Aachen, Germany.
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