Since a lot of our intervention pieces involve text, I thought it would be interesting to blog a bit about Jenny Holzer. Jenny Holzer is a neo-conceptual artist that creates a lot of text-based work. She often displays a series of one-liners on anything from t-shirts to light projections and LED signs. Most of these one-liners are very insightful and personal.
She plays with the contrast between her message and the medium in a lot of her pieces. For example, the personal nature of the one-liners (such as those in her series Truisms) juxtapose the communicative nature of the LED signs. LED signs are used to convey informative things such as the time, date, and directions. Thus, it’s a juxtaposition to put a personal statement on an inherently non-personal medium.
A lot of her art is also public and achieves some kind of social intervention. She was one of the first artists to utilize information technology as a means for political protest. In fact, she even has a piece of art outside of Hill (125 Years) which celebrates women enrollment at Penn.
For more information on Jenny Holzer, click here.
Foundations of Art, Design, + Digital Culture 