Jenny Holzer, Raise boys and Girls the same way. 1950.
b.1950
Art Period: Post-modern artist involved in conceptual art. An art form in which the originating idea and the process by which it is presented take precedence over a tangible product. Conceptual works are sometimes produced in visible form, but they often exist only as descriptions of mental concepts or ideas. This trend developed in the late 1960s, in part as a way to avoid the commercialisation of art. Art as an idea rather than an object that could be bought and sold which only adds to commercialisation which art is currently against.
ARTIST
Born in the US in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1950. Holzer who originally trained as a painter graduated from a New York art school in 1977. She worked originally in surrealist artworks then found her passion in Dadism and politics.
She is very well read and many of her works reflect her very political and globally, aware and concerned, attitude.
Her interests lie in the world and its many issues she looks for myths and common faults in society and presents them as contradictions or parodies to highlight how they are wrong.
She is concerned with the power of language to distort and manipulate.
Her work is reliant on the element of surprise
World
Media and Politics are a major concern for Holzer who concentrates on questioning and making clearer issues to do with society, politics and family. Her early works of Sex, death, power and war continue to remain themes since they were brought out in with her first series TRUISMS. More specific issues explored in her art include political corruption, AIDS, unemployment, gender inequality, starvation, was and pollution.
Media and the extent of the power of words in modern society are of major concern for Holzer.
Influenced by writers and political leaders including Nazi Germanies Adolf Hitler, and Russia's Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
Her chosen style of conceptual art is a purposefully fighting the constant pressure of consumerism and materialism. "protect me from what I want" survival series (1985)
Her work was strongly influenced by the Dadaism which sought to create an anti-art and non-art often employing a sense of absurd. Their works contained strong political overtones.
FEMINISM:
1792 Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a "vindication of the rights of women". Foundation of womens rights movement some 200 years later.
Authors wroted femenist literary works including Linda Nochlin who wrote Why have there been no women artists?(1973) And Germaine Greer who wrote The Obstacle race.(1982)
Famous femenist gorups such as the suffragettes and more art speific womens groups such as Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) and the Guerilla Girls have influenced Holzer.
Contemporaries: Barbara Kruger, the Guerilla Girls and Judy Chicago.
AUDIENCE
Holzers intended audience is the public and a much broader audience than that of the other 3 artists. Her work is political and confronting so her aim is to reach as many people as she can.
Her art satisfies the Post-modern theory that art should not be an elitist thing, but rather accessible to everybody. Her work is displayed publicly. Audience is very important to Holzers work, which is just as much about audience response as it is about the physical work itself.
As she quotes she "wanted to translate them [her messages] into a language that was more accessible."
She intentionally provokes the audience.
WORKS:
"I started the work as a parody, like the Great Ideas of the Western World in a nutshell," to make "big issues in culture intelligible as public art."
Her main style is TEXT, TEXT, TEXT.
She has completed 3 major series including 'truisms', 'survival' and 'Lamentations'.
Her works are mainly site-specific installations and involve the use of advertising mediums that are normally incorporated by the businesses and companies she is trying to degrade.
Her works are displayed in public spaces and popular locations such as Times Square New York
Her medium of production are taking on emerging technologies and have included T-shirts, baseball caps, electronic baseball scoreboards, small books, posters, walls, tombstones, stickers, billboards electronic signs, large xenon projections and her recent work is going to be aimed at mobile phones. All of her mediums are very public and accessible as well as being directly confronting and aims to make the audience uneasy by capturing them unaware.
"I've been working on pieces for wireless phones, since every kid, at least in Europe and Japan, is SMSing."
· "Raise Boys and Girls the Same Way." Selection from truisms (1987). Installation at candlestick park CA, USA. Examines gender issues and inequality.
· "Protect me from What I Want." (1983-1985), spectacolour electronic sign, times square New York. This work is about consumerism and materialism being central to our society. It parodies the common consumer instruction "give me what I want."
· "Abuse of power comes as no surprise" (1983) Message on pink T-shirt. Truisms. New York city. This work can be taken either as a feminist work since the message is worn by a female or can be seen simply as a political protest.
· "War"(1992), LED signs, Installation, St.Peters Church. The work, which contains the words 'the roots', plastered down the sides of a traditional stained glass window which suggests with reference to the title war that religion is the roots of war. This is characteristic of Holzers controversial subjects as well as her ambiguous works, which provoke responses and contest from the audience.
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