Jenny Holzer Essay

Known for her large-scale public installations, Jenny Holzer is a neo-conceptual artist who creates thought provoking narratives through her installations. Her medium includes billboards, buildings, posters, stickers, light projections, plaques, photographs, and perhaps her most famous medium, LED signs. No matter which medium she uses, however, her work never fails to incite and arouse the public. Holzer’s aesthetic includes language and narratives as art, which continues to inspire people around the world. Jenny Holzer was born on July twenty ninth, 1950, to a family of Ford Dealers. She attended Duke and University of Chicago after graduating from Ohio University. Jenny Holzer then began to experiment with art while enrolled in the Rhode Island school of design. Her early work included abstract painting, being influenced by artists Mark Rothko and Morris Louis (Arthistoryarchive.com). Holzer began to form her style, language and text based art, once she moved to Manhattan. Holzer participated in the Whitney Museum’s independent study …show more content…
Holzer’s first use of L.E.D. lights emerged in 1982 when several of her “Truisms” illuminated an electronic billboard in Times Square. With the ability to reach larger audiences, Holzer’s art grew more popular and her style was marked as a conceptual artist, active in the pop art movement. After her initial use of L.E.D., Jenny Holzer utilized this light technology again with her “Survival Series.” This series took a more personal approach, with a more poetic sense to her text. Although considered more poetic, her “Living Series” still embodies disturbing or twisted statements, such as “Men don’t protect you anymore,” or “When someone beats you with a flashlight you make the light shine in all directions” (Artarchives.com). Again, Holzer inflicted great emotion, whether it is empowering or fearful, onto the