Born in Gallipolis, Ohio. Since the late seventies, Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) has been working to create “truisms”, sayings about social issues, and place them in view of the public eye.  She began by using the street and public buildings as galleries where her art would look inconspicuous.  Her first aphorisms and maxims were made public by sticking them as posters onto billboards or printing them on t-shirts.  She went on to engrave her truisms on metal plaques which she affixed to public telephones, parking meters or next to public signs.  Holzer’s texts function as commentary on the environment they inhabit by stimulating awareness of our social conditioning and surroundings.

Sex, death, power and war are the overriding themes in Holzer’s work.  She challenges her audience by making them stop and critique the truisms.  Holzer’s first LED display was placed in New York’s Times Square in 1982 where the lights of her art would blend in with the bright advertising.  An interactive website, “Please Change Beliefs” is Holzer’s first project on the Internet.  It allows you to read her truisms, change her truisms, rate her truisms, and study the results of observers’ entries.  This website is found at: http://adaweb.walkerart.org/project/holzer/cgi/pcb.cgi.  Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, north of New York.

(American, 1950 – )