JENNY HOLZER: PAST PROJECTS

FOR THE CITY continues a series of projections Holzer presented with Creative Time last fall. Planned to coincide with the 2004 Presidential election, FOR NEW YORK CITY illuminated The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, 515 Greenwich Street, Hotel Pennsylvania, and The Cooper Union with the powerful words of Wislawa Szymborska, Yehuda Amichai, Henri Cole, and others. Poetry was offered up to the public in a clean and temporary distillation of light, affirming the wisdom of the unobtrusive.

In addition, a squadron of airplanes flew along the Hudson River pulling banners emblazoned with a series of one-liners, including Holzer's Truisms and a quote from Abraham Lincoln. Filling the sky with universal declarations, the artwork invited onlookers to reflect on power, public life, and the role of the individual in collective society.

FOR NEW YORK CITY marked Holzer's return to New York, the city where she first rose to prominence in the early 1980s. Her last significant pubic art intervention in New York took place over a decade ago, when she adorned marquees with selections from her Truisms and Survival series as part of Creative Time's 42nd Street Art Project in 1993-94.

Past Work

Holzer's projections have taken place in three continents, and over ten countries, including Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States, and nearly twenty cities including Florence, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Venice, Berlin, and Paris. From Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie and Daniel Libeskind's Jüdisches Museum in Berlin to I.M. Pei's Pyramide du Louvre, Holzer's light projections have illuminated significant architectural spaces. Her projections onto waves and mountains in Rio de Janeiro, the Seine River in Paris, the Arno River in Florence, the ski jump in Lillehammer, the Dune du Pyla in France, and other locales engage the natural landscape as quiet and affecting settings for reflection, laughter, and exchange.

Image captions and credits

Building Images: Creative Time, Jenny Holzer: For New York City, 2004

For New York City, at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, October 26, 2004. Text from To the Forty-third President by Henri Cole. First appeared in The New Yorker. © 2004 Henri Cole. Photo: Attilio Maranzano © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

For New York City, at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, October 26, 2004. Text from To the Forty-third President by Henri Cole. First appeared in The New Yorker. © 2004 Henri Cole. Photo: Attilio Maranzano © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

For New York City, at Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, October 27, 2004. Text from Safe House II by Dana Goodyear. © Dana Goodyear. First appeared in the American Poetry Review, 2004. Photo: Attilio Maranzano © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

For New York City, at 515 Greenwich Street, October 28, 2004. Text from The Joy of Writing from Poems New and Collected by Wisława Szymborska, translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh. Copyright © 1998 by Harcourt, Inc. Used/reprinted with permission of the Author. Photo: Attilio Maranzano © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Airplane Images: Creative Time 2004

Airplane Banner Truisms, Oct.26 - Nov. 7 2004, For New York City © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Charlie Samuels © 2004.

Past Work

Installation for Neue Nationalgalerie, 2001, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Text from Selections from Truisms (1977-79), Inflammatory Essays (1979-82), Living (1980-82), Survival (1983-85), Under a Rock (1986), Laments (1989), Mother and Child (1990), War (1992), Lustmord (1993-95), Erlauf (1995), Arno (1996), Blue (1998), Oh (2001). Photo: Attilio Maranzano © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Installation for Neue Nationalgalerie, 2001, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Text from Selections from Truisms (1977-79), Inflammatory Essays (1979-82), Living (1980-82), Survival (1983-85), Under a Rock (1986), Laments (1989), Mother and Child (1990), War (1992), Lustmord (1993-95), Erlauf (1995), Arno (1996), Blue (1998), Oh (2001). Photo: Attilio Maranzano © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Jenny Holzer, Untitled (Selections from Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments, and Child Text), 1989. Extended helical tricolor L.E.D. electronic-display signboard. Site-specific dimensions: 16.5 inches x 162 feet x 6 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Partial gift of the artist, 1989. 89.3626. Photographs by David Heald ©The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

Installation for the 44th Venice Biennale, 1990, United States Pavilion (Gallery E). Far Wall: eleven horizontal electronic LED signs. 10 x 176 x 4.5 inches, each. Text: Truisms (1977-79), Inflammatory Essays (1979-82), Living (1980-82), Survival (1983-85), Under a Rock (1986), Laments (1989), Mother and Child (1990). Photo: Salvatore Licitra. © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Installation for the Reichstag Building, 1999, Bundestag, Berlin. four-sided electronic LED sign column. 558 x 5.25 x 3 inches. Text: collected historic Parliamentary speeches. Photo: Uwe Walter. © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Installation for the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpetriere, 2001, Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpetriere, Paris. four-sided electronic LED column. 1408 x 9.2 x 4.1 inches. Text: Selections from Truisms (1977-79), Inflammatory Essays (1979-82), Living (1980-82), Survival (1983-85), Under a Rock (1986), Laments (1989), Mother and Child (1990), War (1992), Lustmord (1993-95), Erlauf (1995), Arno (1996), Blue (1998), Oh (2001), in French and English. Photo: Attilio Maranzano. © 2005 Jenny Holzer, courtesy Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.