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rAi*<« MONEY H : *: l i * TASTE SPARKING JENNY HOLZER OLZ Diane Waldman Chiat This exhibition is supported in part by generous funds from Jay and the National Endowment for the Arts Additional assistance has been provided by The Owen Cheatham Foundation, The Merrill G and the Arts Emita E. Hastings Foundation, the New York State Council on and anonymous donors SOLO/WON R. GUGGENHEIM AAUSEUAA, NEW YORK HARRY N. ABRAAAS, INC., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Published by The Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, Jenny Holzer Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York New York, in association with Harry N Abrams, Incorporated. December 12, 1989-February 11, 1990 New York, a Times Mirror Company. Project organization and production Copyright g 1989 by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Curator Foundation. New York Diane Waldman Coordination and Research Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clare Bell Waldman, Diane Editorial Jenny Holzer Carol Fuerstem Diana Murphy Catalog of an exhibition Includes bibliographical references Design 1 Holzer, Jenny, 1950- -Exhibitions Malcolm Grear Designers I Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum II. Title Special Photography N6537H577A4 1989 709'. 2 89-25747 David Heald ISBN 0-89207-068-4 Project Financial Management Heidi Olson cover Installation Sunrise Systems, Inc. Selections from Truisms 1986 Myro Riznyck Dectronic Starburst double-sided electronic display signboard, Scott Wixon 20 x 40' Timothy Ross Installation, Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas Guggenheim Operations and Maintenance Staff Lara Rubin, assistant to Jenny Holzer Organized by Nevada Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Registrar Victoria Hertz Public Relations Glory Jones Elizabeth Gerstein Events Linda Gering Maria Masciotti Interns Maura Ryan Lisa Malin Jeanhee Kim TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 PREFACE by Thomas Krens 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS by Diane Waldman Diane Waldman 9 THE LANGUAGE OF SIGNS by 15 INTERVIEW Jenny Holier and Diane Waldman 20 CATALOGUE 107 CHRONOLOGY AND REVIEWS 108 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS, PROJECTS 113 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 116 PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS PREFACE At Times Square or Caesar's Palace, on t-shirts and As the Guggenheim begins the restoration of its radical posters, Jenny Holzer has taken the arresting language of her art and now historic building, the Jenny Holzer exhibition underscores to the streets. She has also presented more contemplative writings the institution's traditional and ongoing commitment to art that is to a smaller gallery audience. This first major presentation of new and challenges its audience It is particularly appropriate too Holzer's work in a New York museum provides the artist with a that the Guggenheim Museum, whose sister institution, the Peggy middleground between the outdoor public spaces and the more Guggenheim Collection, is located in Venice, is showing the work private gallery interiors in which she usually shows her texts. As of this important young artist who will represent the United States always. Holzer has taken advantage of the specific qualities of the at the Venice Biennale of 1990 in the Guggenheim-owned Ameri- site in presenting her work. can Pavilion. Diane Waldman, the Guggenheim's Deputy Director, At a decisive point in her career, at the end of more whose career-long dedication to the art of this century is well than a decade of work, Holzer has used the remarkable spiral of known, deserves my deepest gratitude for bringing this significant the Frank Lloyd Wright building to wind together major selections project to fruition. from her previous writings as well as new texts into a focused and Thomas Krens, Director provocative spectacle of electronic light. Her large-scale spiral sign The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and her stone benches draw attention to the monumental architec- ture of the Museum, yet at the same time, the fleeting messages of the sign and the aphorisms and inscriptions engraved perma- nently on the surfaces of the benches often reveal, behind a voice of authority and certainty, the fragility of the human condition ACKNOWLE DGAAENTS This exhibition and catalogue have been achieved The staff at the Guggenheim Museum has been through the essential support of many individuals. Jenny Holzer's instrumental in assisting me with this exhibition. I would particu- involvement has been crucial to the exhibition's success. Her larly like to thank the following individuals for their efforts: Clare dedication and vision have made this project exciting an and re- Bell, Curatorial Assistant, who skillfully coordinated all aspects of warding undertaking. I would like to express my deepest gratitude the show; Carol Fuerstein, Editor, for her astute editing of the to the National Endowment for the Arts for its commitment to catalogue; Myro Riznyk, Building Manager, whose technical Holzer's and its work generous sponsorship of the show. I am expertise has been indispensable; Diana Murphy, Assistant Editor; equally indebted to Jay Chiat for his enthusiasm and financial Victoria Hertz, Assistant Registrar; Heidi Olson, Manager of assistance. It is with sincere appreciation that I also acknowledge Budget and Planning; David Heald, Photographer; Glory Jones, the continuing generosity of The Owen Cheatham Foundation, Public Affairs Associate, Lisa Dennison, Assistant Curator, Claudia The Merrill G. and Emita E. Hastings Foundation and the New York Defendi, Curatorial Assistant, and Lisa Malm, curatorial intern State Council on the Arts, whose contributions have helped to Jenny Holzer has communicated her messages about make this exhibition possible. I appreciate as well the support modern culture through unbounded outdoor sites and within given by anonymous donors. In addition, I am extremely grateful the controlled interior environments of the gallery and museum. to Barbara Gladstone, without whose help this show could not This exhibition has been enriched by all those individuals and have been realized, and to her staff at the gallery. My thanks are sponsors who, over the past decade, have made it possible for also extended to Paul Miller at Sunrise Systems, Inc., who devoted the artist to reach such a broad population. so much of his time and energy working with the artist on the D.w. spiral L.E.D. sign. THE LANGUAGE OF SIGNS Diane Waldman Like other artists who first came to prominence in the on the cable music-video channel MTV and in other highly visible 1980s, Jenny Holzer is a product of the TV age and the world of public places. billboards. advertising and Her work reflects a decade in which Holzer was born in Gallipolis, in Gallia County, Ohio, in originality is suspect and, as have many of her colleagues, she 1950. She was one of three children in the family, which lived in employs art and aspects of culture to comment on the nature of Lancaster, Ohio. Her mother taught riding in a college before her society and on the way in which art is perceived and received in a marriage and was an active participant in the community, her consumer society. Like many of her predecessors who appropriated father was an athlete who became a Ford dealer. Holzer drew the common object-notably Duchamp and Warhol -Holzer constantly as a child but stopped when she approached adoles- borrows freely from mass culture to explore some of the more cence. She left Lancaster High School after a year to move to Fort 1 pressing issues of our time, addresses concepts of originality and Lauderdale, Florida, "to change her life and her lifestyle." There questions the value of the artist's hand in the making of the work. she attended a private school, Pine Crest Preparatory. She tried for Unlike her forerunners, however, she questions the value of the early enrollment in college and applied to Duke University in artist's hand by contrasting the impersonal common object-the Durham, North Carolina, which accepted her into its liberal arts sign or the billboard— with a message that is personal and "sin- program in 1968. Holzer, however, quickly became dissatisfied cere." She also uses ready-made objects such as electronic bill- with the program at Duke and decided to leave. boards because they bring with them an immediately recognizable Holzer spent 1970-71 at the University of Chicago, level of meaning. In an age of excess, it has become increasingly where she took painting, pnntmaking and other art courses. Al- difficult for artists to startle us, yet Holzer does so: her posters and though she liked the curriculum and faculty at Chicago, she left signs are often subversive in content, her messages and their because the University wanted her to take an additional year of formats provoke and challenge our assumptions about art and its liberal arts courses. Holzer completed her undergraduate work at role in society today. Ohio University in Athens in 1972, and two years later attended Jenny Holzer's pieces range from simple one-liners to summer school at the Rhode Island School of Design in Provi- highly complex elegies and meditations on the human condition. dence. Also in 1974 she met fellow RISD student Mike Glier, who Lean and elegant in appearance, the work is in fact a complex was later to become her husband. She began graduate courses in amalgam of conceptual premise, Pop imagery and ironic inter- Providence in 1975 and simultaneously worked as a graduate change between object and void, presence and absence, sexual assistant. At this early point in her career Holzer was an abstract desire and individual loss. Holzer's media include printed signs, painter, influenced by artists like Mark Rothko and such color field metal plaques, stone benches and sarcophagi as well as electronic painters as Morris Louis. She maintains that she was attracted to signboards that depend on sophisticated technology Her texts the sublime aspect of their art, but feels that her own work was 2 ". have appeared on posters, tractor caps, stickers and billboards, only .