Jenny Holzer has not always held her present post as a reigning figure in the world of contemporary art. When juxtaposed with the simplicity of her first text series, Truisms (1977), her recent work is increasingly more complex. Yet clearly there are qualities which have remained vital to the core aspects of Holzer?s concepts regarding art, particularly that it is intended to be seen by many, pondered over, and deciphered by the general public. She has proven herself capable of exhibiting work in a wide variety of mediums so as to address more acutely an extensive array of cultural issues. In order to remain true to her ideals while adjusting to new spaces and an ever shifting social landscape, Holzer has retained, above all, a devotion to utilizing clear, direct language. Other details in Holzer?s imagery have changed: simple black and white texts printed on posters led to more complex textual displays which employed light, color, and other various mediums (such as marble, skin, and bone, to name a few). Audiences have been winnowed away to a more select group of ?art? cognoscenti who seek out her texts, rather than the original street viewers who were caught abruptly off guard by the appearance of Holzer?s texts in public places. Rather than authoring her own texts, Holzer now also culls writings from various poets or utilizes documents from government archives; installations have grown more intricate and complex as they have moved from outdoor to gallery and museum spaces. Nonetheless, Holzer still elicits reactions to her work today that are as strong as the feelings borne towards her early works. In fact, some of these newer projects may even be more emotionally difficult to bear, as they continue to engender dialogues about issues most viewers would rather ignore because of their uncomfortable nature. This paper serves to explore the ways in which Holzer?s work has successfully matured, addresses the mechanisms by which her texts achieve their potency, and enumerates the similarities and differences between the various series Holzer has created through her career up to her Redaction Paintings (2005-2007).

The task of this dissertation is to assess the historical conditions that permitted Jenny Holzer to formulate a practice premised on language and conceptions of public space to break from historical avant-garde and neo-avant-garde practices. My aim is to demonstrate the recourses sought by Holzer—through language, collaboration, and form—to reveal the operations of repression at work in the public spaces of place and language in particular moments of crises at the end of a—and at the ruined start of a new—century: the economic collapse of the late 1970s, the AIDs crisis, and the wars on terror following the events of September 11, 2001. The exemplary projects that I study in this dissertation—from her Truisms posters in downtown Manhattan in the late 1970s, to her collaborative work with The Offices of Fend, Fitzgibbon, Holzer, Nadin, Prince, and Winters, to her work with electronic signs and stone sarcophagi to address the AIDS crisis at its most dire period in 1987-89, to her light projections whose moving impermanence reflect on the continuity of mourning as an activity—each demonstrate the impossibility of neutrality. Concentrating on works conceptualized for and realized (for the most part) in New York City over the course of a quarter century, my study uses the seeming consistency of geography, or at least the fixity of a longitudinal and latitudinal intersection, to indicate the seismic changes inflicted on the city and its residents by economic, legal, political, and violent actions—and, in the case of the AIDS crisis, criminal inaction. My dissertation argues that Holzer’s unflagging demonstration of threatened subjectivity is the necessary form of protest to an ever-more bureaucratized world. / History of Art and Architecture

Jenny Holzer's text-based projects have attracted the attention of critics, historians, and curators from Des Moines to Dresden. An understanding of the complex interplay between language, gender, power, and site within Holzer's work demonstrates how a singular interpretive approach is insufficient for discussing the multitude of meanings her projects produce. Perhaps most significantly, a fresh analysis of Holzer's work and critical reactions to it challenges the story of modernism and postmodernism and the relationship between these two terms.

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Jenny Holzer's text-based projects have attracted the attention of critics, historians, and curators from Des Moines to Dresden. An understanding of the complex interplay between language, gender, power, and site within Holzer's work demonstrates how a singular interpretive approach is insufficient for discussing the multitude of meanings her projects produce. Perhaps most significantly, a fresh analysis of Holzer's work and critical reactions to it challenges the story of modernism and postmodernism and the relationship between these two terms.

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação é pensar a relação que se estabelece entre a palavra escrita e a imagem no trabalho da artista visual norte-americana Jenny Holzer. Desde que Holzer espalhou por Manhattan, em 1977, pôsteres anônimos contendo frases polêmicas (truísmos), seu trabalho tornou-se objeto de uma abordagem que tende privilegiar o conteúdo dos escritos em detrimento de sua forma. Esta pesquisa parte do pressuposto de que, embora o texto seja o elemento predominante na trajetória da artista, a forma cuidadosa como ela situa as palavras no espaço, costurando o visual ao discursivo, torna a experiência do espectador diferente da leitura. Na sua obra, as palavras investem-se de materialidade, cor, luz, ritmo e movimento, impondo-se tanto por sua presença quanto por seu conteúdo provocador. Esta estratégia coloca em evidência os intervalos entre palavra e imagem, conteúdo e forma, entendimento e sensibilidade, problematizando a legitimidade destes dualismos e apontando para a produção efeitos estéticos complexos que extrapolam a dimensão dos significados do texto. / [en] The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between word and image in Jenny Holzer s work. Since she has first shown her controversial Truisms on anonymous street posters pasted throughout Manhattan, in 1977, critics have been privileging the content of her writings over its form. The present essay assumes that, although written language plays a central role in her work, the careful way she situates her texts in space, intertwining the textual and the visual, makes for an experience different from reading. The words are invested of materiality, color, light, rhythm and movement, outstanding both for their own presence and for their provocative content. This strategy highlights the gaps between word and image, content and form, knowledge and sensibility, questioning the legitimacy of these dualisms and pointing toward complex aesthetic effects that go beyond the meanings of the text.

<p>Denna uppsats tittar närmare på fyra verk av Jenny Holzer. Hennes konstnärskap jämförs även med Guerilla Girls. Huvudmetoden utgörs av bildanalyser och jag presenterar också tolkningsmöjligheter utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Utöver detta har jag med en konsthistoriografisk undersökning fått fram hur den generella bilden av Holzer ser ut.</p>

Denna uppsats tittar närmare på fyra verk av Jenny Holzer. Hennes konstnärskap jämförs även med Guerilla Girls. Huvudmetoden utgörs av bildanalyser och jag presenterar också tolkningsmöjligheter utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Utöver detta har jag med en konsthistoriografisk undersökning fått fram hur den generella bilden av Holzer ser ut.