About Jenny Holzer

Jenny Holzer (b. 1950, Gallipolis, Ohio) is one of the most influential contemporary artists working with language, internationally renowned for text-based artworks that confront power, violence, sexuality, and social justice with unflinching directness. Since the late 1970s, she has transformed public and institutional spaces through provocative statements that challenge viewers to engage with urgent political and personal truths.

Holzer's practice began with her iconic Truisms (1977–79), a series of one-line statements printed on posters and wheat-pasted anonymously throughout New York City. These aphoristic texts – ranging from the banal to the profound – questioned authority, ideology, and received wisdom. This approach expanded into LED signs, stone benches, projections, and prints, bringing language into dialogue with architecture, technology, and public space.

Her artworks employ a wide range of media and formats, from electronic LED displays and large-scale projections to carved stone benches and limited edition prints. Series such as Inflammatory Essays, Living, Survival, and Lustmord explore themes of war, trauma, feminism, and human rights, often incorporating declassified government documents and testimonies. This approach creates a tension between the clinical presentation of text and the emotional weight of its content.

In 1990, Holzer became the first woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, where she won the Golden Lion. Her practice continues to address contemporary political crises, from the Iraq War to government surveillance, positioning language as both a tool of power and resistance.

In addition to her public installations and projections, Jenny Holzer has produced an extensive body of limited edition prints, photographs, and multiples that remain highly sought after by collectors worldwide. These signed editions translate her powerful use of language into collectible artworks, offering accessible entry points into her politically engaged practice.

Through her prints, projections, and installations, Jenny Holzer continues to be recognized as one of the most important conceptual artists of her generation, with artworks held in major museum collections globally.

Auction record: $1.2 million, Phillips, 2019

Notable exhibitions

Jenny Holzer represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1990, becoming the first woman to do so and winning the Golden Lion for her installation. This landmark exhibition established her as one of the leading contemporary artists working with text and public space.

Major solo exhibitions include retrospectives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1989); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1997); Tate Modern, London (2006); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2009). More recently, her artworks have been featured in significant exhibitions at the Louvre, Paris (2019), where she projected texts onto the museum's façade, and at the Guggenheim Bilbao (2019–2020).

Her limited edition prints, projections, and text-based installations have been exhibited at leading institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C. Her signed prints and original artworks remain highly sought after by collectors worldwide.