Living Series: It can be startling to see someone’s breath…

Jenny Holzer, one of the most renowned conceptual artists in the United States, was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1950. In 1977, she moved to New York, where she took part in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art and began working with public art texts. During her first year in New York, she created Truisms, a series of black texts in capital letters written on white paper, which she printed and (illegally) displayed all over Manhattan. Two years later, she joined Colab, a group of artists also including Jean-Michel Basquiat. Holzer and Basquiat shared their interest in the public domain as a space for art—a kind of open-air museum.

Jenny Holzer has extensively used language as a vessel for artistic expression. Her aphorisms remind us that language is simple and straightforward; they are self-evident truths in a long series of statements, phrases heard on the street about war, politics, death or violence. In the 1960s, the concept that the work of art’s value was relative to the idea underlying it or the action performed to make it real became commonplace. In the 1970s, Holzer used written language on bills, posters, T-shirts, pamphlets, even condom wrappers. In the following decade, her aphorisms appeared on the huge billboards that decorated the streets of New York, and soon afterwards she began exploring other media such as video or large neon signs. Since the physical object was no longer as important as the concept behind it, the artist focused on the creative process, transforming action into pure reflection.