Jenny Holzer (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon)) [Paperback]

Jenny Holzer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Contemporary Artists (Phaidon) | Publication Date: November 6, 1998

Jenny Holzer is an artist who works with new media, in locations ranging from baseball stadiums to public transportation systems. This book surveys all her installations, including her celebrated marble benches and electronic boards at the DIA Foundation New York, street and gallery based exhibitions, permanent public monuments, and works on the World Wide Web. Starting on the streets of New York with simple fly-posters, she has gone on to disseminate her truisms, slogans, memorials and poems through a variety of media. They are enunciated by an unstable register of personae be it ad man, stand up comic, torturer, victim or evangelist. The sites for her work range from T shirts and golf balls, to dazzling electronic signboards at baseball stadiums or the Internet. Her work uses language to investigate ideologies, conscious and unconscious formations about identity and experience. Her complex and poetic texts can be shocking, humorous and intriguing in content; at the same time she draws on Minimalism's use of industrial materials, and deploys scale, movement and light to create art of great formal power and beauty. The book is part of a series of studies of important artists of the late-20th century. Each title offers a comprehensive survey of the artist's work, providing analyses and multiple perspectives on contemporary art and its inspiration.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Phaidon Press (November 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714837547
• ISBN-13: 978-0714837543
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,053,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic coverage of a fantastic artist., February 16, 1999

By 

Rachel Barenblat "Velveteen Rabbi" (Williamstown, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jenny Holzer (Contemporary Artists (Phaidon)) (Paperback)

The book listed on this page, a monograph on Jenny Holzer by Phaidon Press, is fabulous. It contains information on Holzer's wide and influential art career, from her Truisms posters of the 'seventies to her electronic LED signs, carved stone benches, and virtual art pieces of the 'nineties.

This book is also unique, within the Holzer bibliography, because of the "Artist's Choice" section where Holzer provides excerpts from books and writings that have influenced her, along with explanations of why she's moved by them.

If you're interested in modern art, or women artists, this is a must-read

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jenny Holzer- Protect me from what I can't see, February 24, 2001

By 

Enigmatic Mermaid "enigmaticmermaid" (Sao Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jenny Holzer (Hardcover)

Have you ever stopped to think how many times we are bombarded by truisms everyday? Get this book and you will get a clue. In the Truisms series over exposure to banality reveals how numbed out we all are. Take a cliche like "Children are the hope to the future" and place beside "Children are the most cruel of all". We say and repeat these truisms but do we really realize that they are empty in themselves ? Do we perceive the contradictions ? How we mold reality to suit our needs ? Truisms sooth us with the cushioned feeling of the "generally accepted truth". Jenny Holzer literally splashes intimate thoughts, truisms, activist slogans over the landscape. These truths, half-truths and huge lies stare out at us in billboards, park benches like a conscience made physical. This is art made on the very border of reality and language.