Exhibition view: ARTIST ROOMS: Jenny Holzer, Tate Modern, London, 2018 © 2018 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Photo: Jack Hems
THEY LEFT ME 2018
Text: Interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch with former detainees, including women and children, and defectors from the Syrian military and intelligence agencies, 2011–12, from Torture Archipelago: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria's Underground Prisons since March 2011, © 2012 by Human Rights Watch. Used with permission of Human Rights Watch. All names have been changed to protect identities.
I'VE JUST BEEN SHOT 2017
Text: Interviews with current and former members of the British military, © 2017 by the Not Forgotten Association. Used with permission of the Not Forgotten Association.
TOWARDS THE CLOUDS 2017
Text: "Earth and Sky" from Building the Barricade by Anna Świrszczyńska, English translation by Piotr Florczyk, © 2016 by Tavern Books. Used with permission of Ludmilla Adamska-Orłowska and the translator.
FLOOR 2015
Installation: ARTIST ROOMS: Jenny Holzer, Tate Modern, London, 2018 © 2017 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Photo: Jack Hems
Exhibition view: Artist Rooms: Jenny Holzer, Tate Modern, London, 2018
© 2018 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Photo: Jack Hems
American artist Jenny Holzer presents statements that can provoke strong responses. Whether encountered on city streets or in art galleries, Holzer's work asks us to consider the words and messages that surround us. Her art takes many forms, including stone benches, projections, signs, posters, paintings, plaques and textiles. Words are central to her work, whether pasted on a wall, flickering from an electronic sign, carved in granite or stitched in wool.
Her texts can be forceful and apparently simple, but may contradict one another. They are not necessarily straightforward expressions of the artist’s views. Truisms, Holzer’s first text series, is a survey of belief.
Holzer has described her aims:
I wanted a lot simultaneously: to leave art outside for the public, to be a painter of mysterious yet ordered works, to be explicit but not didactic, to find the right subjects, to transform spaces, to disorient and transfix people, to offer up beauty, to be funny and never lie.
Early in her career, Holzer delivered messages on posters and T-shirts so they would be seen in everyday places rather than in museums and galleries. Her work addresses the information overload and multiple perspectives we read daily. Eye-catching or quiet and lyrical, Holzer's art invites us to read and interpret for ourselves.
The ARTIST ROOMS programme of exhibitions with partner museums and galleries enables access to modern and contemporary art of international significance in rural areas, small towns and major cities throughout the UK.
Exhibitions are happening throughout 2019 and into 2020 in venues large and small, the length and breadth of the country, from Dundee to The Isle of Wight.
Works from the ARTIST ROOMS collection can also be seen at Tate sites in London, Liverpool and St Ives as well as at National Galleries of Scotland sites in Edinburgh.
