Lets Make A Statement

Let’s make a Let’s make a statement…… statement……

ambivalence can ruin your lifean elite is inevitableanger or hate can be a useful motivating forceanimalism is perfectly healthyany surplus is immoralanything is a legitimate area of investigationartificial desires are despoiling the earthat times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioningat times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mindautomation is deadlyawful punishment awaits really bad peoplebad intentions can yield good resultsbeing alone with yourself is increasingly unpopularbeing happy is more important than anything elsebeing judgmental is a sign of lifebeing sure of yourself means you're a foolbelieving in rebirth is the same as admitting defeatboredom makes you do crazy thingscalm is more conductive to creativity than is anxietycategorizing fear is calmingchange is valuable when the oppressed become tyrantschasing the new is dangerous to societychildren are the most cruel of allchildren are the hope of the future

Jenny HolzerJenny Holzer is famous for her short statements, formallycalled ‘truisms’. Some are common myths while othersare just phrases on random subjects in the form of slogans.Her medium, whether formulated as a t-shirt, as a plaque,or as an LED sign, always is writing,and the public dimension is integral to the delivery of her work.starting in the late 1970s with the posters that Jenny Holzerpasted on buildings in New York City, and up to her recentxenon projections on landscape and architecture,her practice has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor,kindness, and moral courage.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/holzer/index.html#

Jenny Holzer – Art 21, PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/holzer/index.html





jenny holzerwas born 1950 in gallipolis, ohio, usa.she received a BFA in painting and printmaking from ohiouniversity in 1972 and an MFA in painting from the RISD /rhode island school of design in 1975.holzer began to use text in her work while attendingohio university. an abstract painter while at RISD,she shifted to public projects and works that were‘sublime and impressive’.jenny holzer moved to new york city in 1976 andenrolled in the whitney museum independent study program,there she created the first ‘truisms’, in a first stage as aseries of one-liners on posters pasted anonymously aroundthe city. later she did installations with electronic LED displaysthat are attentive to architecture, monuments and memorials;and since 1996, large-scale xenon projections of texton buildings and landscape. she has realized these xenonprojections in florence, rome, venice, rio de janeiro, buenos aires,oslo, paris, bordeaux, berlin, washington, new york city and miami.holzer received the leone d’oro for her american pavilioninstallation at the 1990 venice biennale, was the recipient of the2002 kaiserring from the city of goslar, germany,and was awarded the public art network annual award byamericans for the arts in 2004.she lives and works in hoosick, new york.

JENNY HOLZER’S TRUISM’Sdreaming while awake is a frightening contradiction

dying and coming back gives you considerable perspectivedying should be as easy as falling off a log

eating too much is criminalelaboration is a form of pollution

emotional responses are as valuable as intellectual responsesenjoy yourself because you can't change anything anyway

ensure that your life stays in fluxeven your family can betray you

every achievement requires a sacrificeeveryone's work is equally importanteverything that's interesting is new

exceptional people deserve special concessionsexpiring for love is beautiful but stupid

expressing anger is necessaryextreme behavior has its basis in pathological psychology

extreme self-consciousness leads to perversionfaithfulness is a social not a biological law

fake or real indifference is a powerful personal weaponfathers often use too much forcefear is the greatest incapacitator

freedom is a luxury not a necessity

abstraction is a type of decadenceabuse of power comes as no surpriseaction causes more trouble than thoughtalienation produces eccentrics or revolutionariesall things are delicately interconnectedambition is just as dangerous as complacencyambivalence can ruin your lifean elite is inevitableanger or hate can be a useful motivating forceanimalism is perfectly healthyany surplus is immoralanything is a legitimate area of investigationartificial desires are despoiling the earthat times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioningat times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mindautomation is deadlyawful punishment awaits really bad peoplebad intentions can yield good resultsbeing alone with yourself is increasingly unpopularbeing happy is more important than anything elsebeing judgmental is a sign of lifebeing sure of yourself means you're a foolbelieving in rebirth is the same as admitting defeatboredom makes you do crazy things

abstraction is a type of decadenceabuse of power comes as no surpriseaction causes more trouble than thoughtalienation produces eccentrics or revolutionariesall things are delicately interconnectedambition is just as dangerous as complacencyambivalence can ruin your lifean elite is inevitableanger or hate can be a useful motivating forceanimalism is perfectly healthyany surplus is immoralanything is a legitimate area of investigationartificial desires are despoiling the earthat times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioningat times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mindautomation is deadlyawful punishment awaits really bad peoplebad intentions can yield good resultsbeing alone with yourself is increasingly unpopularbeing happy is more important than anything elsebeing judgmental is a sign of lifebeing sure of yourself means you're a foolbelieving in rebirth is the same as admitting defeatboredom makes you do crazy things

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"Xenon for Bregenz"2004Light projection. Kanisfluh, Austria.Text: “Arno” (1996), Photo: Attilio Maranzano, © 2007 Jenny Holzer, member Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.

"I started doing the projections in 1996, and have been working on those since. Xenon is a word that describes what used to be in the lamps of the projectors. I’ve clung to it because I just like the word. The projectors are exceptionally powerful and, because they’re so bright, they let me throw text on mountains and rivers and on giant buildings."- Jenny Holzer



"Benches"1989Installation: Dorris C. Freedman Plaza New York, New York. Truism bench, 1987. Danby Royal marble, 17 x 54 x 25 inches.© 2007 Jenny Holzer, member Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.



"Truisms"1977–79T-shirt worn by Lady Pink, New York,1983.Text: “Truisms” (1977-79), Photo: Lisa Kahane, © 2007 Jenny Holzer, member Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.

"The ‘Truisms’ (1977- 79) were perhaps an overly ambitious attempt to make an outline of everything that I wanted to do. I’m not sure I knew that at the time I wrote them, but that’s what I’ve come to recognize. I wanted to have almost every subject represented, almost every possible point of view, and then I had to sort out what those sentences should appear on."- Jenny Holzer



"Truisms"1977–79Spectacolor electronic sign. Times Square, New York, 1986.Text: “Survival” (1983-85), Photo: John Marchael, © 2007 Jenny Holzer, member Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.

"I’m afraid to talk about values these days. Usually, any time values are invoked, it’s to dismiss or maybe incarcerate somebody! I do make work that focuses on unnecessary cruelty, in the hope that people will recoil. I would like there to be less fear and cruelty."- Jenny H



"I was invited to see what would make sense to put in the middle of an abandoned church in Austria. And Henri Cole’s poem, 'To the 43rd President,' burned into a tree seemed right at the time. I’m reluctant to characterize someone else’s poem, but it seemed something between a prayer and a reproach."- Jenny HolzerRelate



"The big installations not only include the creation or choice of the text, but they also have much to do with filling the space and programming the electronics. That programming includes pauses, flashes, phrasing, and more. I reay like the programming aspect. I was a typesetter, and typesetting is not unlike programming. You have to make text correct, complete, and pretty- and fitted. The presentation needs to make sense with the content and then needs to engage people."- Jenny Holzer









Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945. After attending Syracuse University, the School of Visual Arts, and studying art and design with Diane Arbus at Parson’s School of Design in New York, Kruger obtained a design job at Condé Nast Publications. Working for Mademoiselle Magazine, she was quickly promoted to head designer. Later, she worked as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor in the art departments at House and Garden, Aperture, and other publications. This background in design is evident in the work for which she is now internationally renowned. She layers found photographs from existing sources with pithy and aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control that her captions speak to. In their trademark black letters against a slash of red background, some of her instantly recognizable slogans read “I shop therefore I am,” and “Your body is a battleground." Much of her text questions the viewer about feminism, classicism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, although her black-and-white images are culled from the mainstream magazines that sell the very ideas she is disputing.

Barbara Kruger

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/kruger/card2.html

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/kruger/card2.html

Japan Calligraphy at Kennedy Center

Lost Generation video using text and narration

Education

Lets Make A Statement