2010.315 2010.316 2010.317 HOLZER
By Nina Miall
‘A Kind of Library’ May 2023
These small, red, postcard-sized statements by North American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer are adapted from her celebrated Truisms — an ongoing series of aphorisms or slogans penned by the artist that have found expression on everything from baseball caps to billboards. Holzer began making these works in 1977, drawing on the strategies and visual languages of advertising and the mass media. Variously insightful, outraged or acerbic in tone, they play on commonly held truths and clichés; considered together, they offer a spectrum of often contradictory opinions. Holzer’s intention was that, by placing them in everyday settings such as storefronts and other public spaces, she would heighten the public’s awareness of the ‘usual baloney they are fed’ by the mass media.
Connected objects
![© Jenny Holzer/Copyright Agency Artwork Torture is barbaric this artwork made of Screenprint on timber, created in 1991-01-01](/system/files/styles/large/private/object-images/2010.316_001.jpg?itok=uAZD3BNN)
Torture is barbaric 1991
- HOLZER, Jenny - Creator