A pair of white marble benches, engraved texts
43.2 x 154.9 x 61 cm (each)


Holzer’s texts display a type of lexical self-portrait, a composite persona in which the artist shuffles herself through a number of identities so as to create and offer a possible notion of the self within and in contrast to an environment of revolving stereotypes. Holzer confidently wraps her language in uncertainty, conspiring to elicit the same uncertainty and tension in the viewer. Her texts constantly oscillate between the poles of pain/pleasure and beautiful/grotesque, thereby intensely confronting and questioning the viewer’s sense of self and truth. The psychological realities of her writings are not easily faced and they appear even more aggressive and persistent when carved in stone, as in Arno, which consists of poems incised into marble benches. Through this choice of medium, the all-too-private and the ineffable is literally and physically inscribed into the space/body. The benches, placed in public realms, propose a form of public art whose primary purpose is not to decorate the urban landscape but to provoke public discourse.


*1950 in Gallipolis, USA | Living and working in New York, USA

CURRENT LOANS 

Solo show: Jenny Holzer
Venue: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
March 11, 2023 - August 6, 2023