Known for taking art out of the traditional “white cube” of galleries and museums and onto the streets, Jenny Holzer is one of the most potent feminist Neo-Conceptual artists of the 20th century. Her most iconic work critiques the information age and consumerism by reclaiming its primary media — conventional print billboards, storefront posters and LED signs.
“I used language because I wanted to offer content that people — not necessarily art people — could understand,” the Ohio-born Holzer told Interview magazine. She received her MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design, where her work was influenced by Abstract Expressionism. It was while in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art that Holzer became inspired to work at the intersection of public art and language.
In the late 1970s, after becoming an active participant in the downtown Manhattan artist collective Colab, which included Tom Otterness and Christy Rupp, Holzer began to create her legendary “Truisms” series. Printing anonymous one-line aphorisms in bold and italicized text on broadsheets, she pasted them up in public spaces all over New York City. The “Truisms” are provocative in questioning how we receive and process information. The work elicits debate and represents a range of perspectives. In an era that saw the rise of street art and graffiti, Holzer’s pithy word art would also find viewers by way of T-shirts, stickers and park benches, into which her slogans were carved.
Holzer’s more combative “Inflammatory Essays” (1979–82) took the form of mass-produced posters on colored paper — each featuring paragraphs as compared to the punch-line structure of “Truisms.” These touched on subjects such as violence, misogyny, power structures and consumerism, all of which have continued to be central in her work.
Starting in 1982 as part of a Public Art Fund project, Holzer projected “Protect me from what I want” and other “Truisms” on the Spectacolor board, a large computerized light signboard in New York City’s Times Square. Her “Abuse of power comes as no surprise,” which has appeared on T-shirts as part of the series, has taken on new life in an increasingly politically divided America.
Just as it did in the 1970s, the forcefulness of her work continues to make both viewers and the art world stop and pay attention. She has had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Modern in London and elsewhere. She has also created permanent installations including the New York City AIDS Memorial. A 2014 show at New York’s Cheim & Read featured oil-on-linen canvases based on declassified government files pertaining to detainees from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Find Jenny Holzer prints and sculptures on 1stDibs.
Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays: Shriek When the Pain Hits...
By Jenny Holzer
Located in Hamburg, DE
Jenny Holzer (American, b. 1950) Inflammatory Essays: Shriek When the Pain Hits During Interrogation, 1996 Multiple: Pewter multiple with engraved text Dimensions: 6.6 × 5 × 1.1 cm (...
Metal
Jenny Holzer Bronze Plaque Selections from the Living Series, 1981
By Jenny Holzer
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
Edition 1 of 3 Acquired by current owner from Sotheby's Sale in 2021 Other works from this series have been acquired by The Whitney Museum of American Art, MOMA, National Gallery o...
Bronze
Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays 3 - LED Sculpture, Light Art, Text-based Art
By Jenny Holzer
Located in Hamburg, DE
Jenny Holzer (American, b. 1950) Inflammatory Essays 3, 1982/2002 Medium: Electronic tri-color mini-LED panel, with anodized aluminium housing, incl. power adapter Dimensions: 10.1 x...
LED Light
$34,000
H 48 in W 48 in D 8 in
Thirteen - immersive dimensional perceptual ambient color light wall sculpture
By Raymond Graber
Located in San Francisco, CA
Raymond Graber's celestial light sculptures transform the sense of perception, challenging the human eye’s sense for scale and time with a transcendenta...
Fiberglass, Plaster, Plywood, LED Light, Neon Light
$28,000
H 46 in W 46 in D 9.5 in
Three - infinite perceptual an immersive ambient color light wall sculpture
By Raymond Graber
Located in San Francisco, CA
ARTWORK VISUALS ARE WORK IN PROGRESS - FINAL ARTWORK VISUALS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST Raymond Graber‘s celestial light sculptures transform the sense of p...
Wood, Lights, LED Light, Neon Light, Mixed Media, Acrylic
$22,000
H 46 in W 46 in D 8.75 in
One Light - immersive infinite perceptual ambient light wall sculpture
By Raymond Graber
Located in San Francisco, CA
Raymond Graber‘s celestial light sculptures transform the sense of perception, challenging the human eye’s sense for scale and time with a transcendenta...
Wood, Lights, LED Light, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Neon Light
$18,000
H 67 in W 78.75 in D 5 in
The Second Cousin, Contemporary woven paper wall sculpture by Grethe Wittrock
Located in Wilton, CT
The Second Cousin is exemplary of Danish artist, Grethe Wittrock's work which often includes expanses of twisted paper strands in single colors — minim...
Metal
$1,600
H 13 in W 13 in
"Thinking About the Old Carpet & the Air Hockey Table" Hand Embroidery & Collage
By Kelly Kozma
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This fabric work titled "Thinking About the Old Carpet & the Air Hockey Table" is an original artwork by Kelly Kozma made of hand embroidery and photogr...
Fabric, Thread, Found Objects, Paper, Photographic Paper
Miss You Fabric Sculpture: Hand Embroidery and Found Objects
By Kelly Kozma
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This fabric work titled "Miss You" is an original artwork by Kelly Kozma made of hand embroidery, stickers, and chain on paper. The piece measures 13”h by 13”...
Fabric, Thread, Found Objects
$9,000
H 49 in W 70 in D 6 in
"Vibrant Conversation", Contemporary Abstract Textile Wall Sculpture
By Marianne Kemp
Located in Wilton, CT
Vibrant Conversation, horsehair, cotton, linen, 49” x 70” x 6", 2018. This vibrant contemporary abstract textile wall sculpture was done by textile artist, Marianne Kemp (b. 1976, W...
Fabric, Textile, Cotton, Tapestry, Linen
$1,600
H 13 in W 13 in
"Squeaking By", Fabric Sculpture, Hand Embroidery on Paper, 21st Century
By Kelly Kozma
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This fabric work titled "Squeaking By" is an original artwork by Kelly Kozma made of hand embroidery and photographs on paper. The piece measures 13”h by 13”w framed. Kelly Kozma is...
Fabric, Thread, Found Objects, Paper
Dead of Night Hand Embroidery Sculpture in Fabric and Thread
By Kelly Kozma
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This fabric work titled "Dead of Night" is an original artwork by Kelly Kozma made of hand embroidery on paper. The piece measures 13”h by 13”w framed. Kelly Kozma is a mixed media ...
Fabric, Thread, Found Objects
$333
H 6.25 in W 7 in D 2 in
"Fern Spiral Series 3" Iridescent, Dichroic material, Botanical, sculpture
By Roxana Azar
Located in Philadelphia, PA
This Mixed Media piece titled "Fern Spiral Series 3" is an original artwork by Roxana Azar made of an etched fluorescent acrylic. The piece measure...
Mixed Media, Lucite, Pigment
$12,752
H 18.9 in W 7.88 in D 8.67 in
Duo by Martine Demal - Contemporary bronze sculpture, diptych, couple
By Martine Demal
Located in Paris, FR
Duo is a bronze sculpture by French contemporary artist Martine Demal, dimensions are 48 × 20 × 22 cm (18.9 × 7.9 × 8.7 in). The sculpture is signed and numbered, it is part of a l...
Bronze
$2,500
H 27 in W 11 in D 3 in
Jo Yarrington, Mute-Ability_Composition 1, 2019_acrylic, steel, player piano rol
By Jo Yarrington
Located in Darien, CT
Jo Yarrington’s photographs, prints, works on paper, glass sculptures and architecturally-based installations have been shown in exhibitions at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Yale University, Cornell University, the Museum of Glass, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Artists Space, St. John the Divine Cathedral, Grounds for Sculpture, the Museum of American Glass and ODETTA, among others. International exhibitions have included Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow University, Galeria Sala Uno and Centro de las Artes de Guanajuato. She represented the United States at the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates and participated in the Berlin Biennial. in 2010 she received the Bronze Prize, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia. Yarrington is a recipient of artist grants and Fellowships from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. She has received Residency Fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Museum of Glass, the Museum of American Glass, the Bridge Virtual Residency/ SciArt Center, the Lucile Walton Fellow/Mountain Lake Biological Station, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Anderson Center and the Ucross Foundation, among others. International grants and fellowships have included the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity/Canada, SIMS Residency/ Iceland, Cill Rialaig Artists Residency/Ireland, the Burren College of Art Residency/Ireland and the American Scandinavian Foundation. She is a Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University and lives and works in New York City. STATEMENT In site-specific exhibitions, public art commissions, collaborative and individual projects Jo Yarrington has used varied combinations of glass, waxed surfaces, found artifacts and experimental analog photography to investigate the way we perceive – searching for, experimenting with and developing throughout a sensory-based vernacular. Her mostly translucent materials function as physical framework and symbolic membrane. Light, both natural and ambient, provides a kinetic or time-based element to her work. Scale and the integration of architecture are also pivotal components. In the 6-part installation for the two-person exhibition Illuminated, Yarrington continues her interest in the connections between vision, sound and language. In Mute-ability: Compositions 1 – 6, her title for this light-based comprehensive work, she combines the words mute and malleability. The work focuses on found piano rolls, a music storage medium, originally conceived as coded notations or ‘note control data’ for music produced in pneumatic player pianos...
Steel
15 Black Boxes, Wall Sculpture by Jin-Sook So
By Jin-Sook So
Located in Wilton, CT
This abstract geometric wall sculpture was done by fiber artist, Jin-Sook So (b. 1950, Korea). So’s work is informed by her time spent in Korea, Sweden and Japan. She uses transpar...
Silver, Steel, Gold Leaf
Chair Bronze Sculpture
By Eran Shakine
Located in Lake Worth Beach, FL
Eran Shakine Chair 2014 Bronze Sculpture He was born in 1962 in Israel to a French father and Hungarian mother. He has lived in Paris, London and for seven years in New York City, wh...
Bronze
$23,988
H 13.39 in W 17.33 in D 10.63 in
Alchemy by Romain Langlois - Rock-like bronze sculpture, golden, abstract
By Romain Langlois
Located in Paris, FR
Alchemy is a bronze sculpture by contemporary artist Romain Langlois, dimensions are 34 × 44 × 27 cm (13.4 × 17.3 × 10.6 in). The sculpture is signed and numbered, it is part of a l...
Bronze
Sold
H 2.17 in W 2.6 in D 0.44 in
Inflammatory Essays -- Sculpture, Pewter, Text Art by Jenny Holzer
By Jenny Holzer
Located in London, GB
Inflammatory Essays: Shriek When the Pain Hits During Interrogation, 1996 Jenny Holzer Pewter multiple with engraved text With the artist's incised signature and numbering verso Fr...
Metal
Sold
H 2.17 in W 2.6 in D 0.44 in
Inflammatory Essays, Sculpture, Pewter, Text Art by Jenny Holzer
By Jenny Holzer
Located in London, GB
JENNY HOLZER Inflammatory Essays: Shriek When the Pain Hits During Interrogation, 1996 Pewter multiple with engraved text With the artist's incised signature and numbering verso Fro...
Metal