Jenny Holzer
Truisms
Offset lithograph on paper
22 x 17 inches
Stamped “Jenny Holzer 1978”
1978
Jenny Holzer’s approach is, as she put
it, to “use what is dominant in a culture to change it.” Though her art is
almost entirely text-based, Holzer’s methodology is one of appropriation and thus runs in parallel to that of Richard Prince, Jack Goldstein, Dara Birnbaum,
Cindy Sherman and others who gained prominence in the late 70s and early 80s,
collectively defining a post-modern aesthetic. While they made use of
appropriated imagery and photographic modes of working in order to examine and
subvert standard ways in which the culture represented itself visually, Holzer
was appropriating established linguistic tropes in order to distill received
wisdom into a series of basic verbal constructions. Holzer has also been
innovative in her use of non-traditional media and modes of exhibition, frequently installing her work publicly as posters, in paid
advertising, artists’ books, or, more recently, by using electronic displays
and projections, in order to reach an audience well beyond art’s usual museum
and gallery settings.
