Jenny Holzer - 80s New York Friday, December 17, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York; Sale: Christie's, New York, November 9, 2005, lot 574; Private Collection

  • Catalogue Essay

    When I was unable to paint well enough, language returned as a way for me to continue working. I’m not sure that I wanted to challenge painting as much as I just wanted to make something descent for people. I wanted a lot simultaneously: to leave art outside for the public, to be a painter of mysterious yet ordered works, to be explicit but not didactic, to find the right subjects, to transform spaces, to disorient and transfix people, to offer up beauty, to be funny and never lie. Sometimes the messages are conflicting, and other times the language and the messages will be blunt and to the point. I routinely invite the reader to sort through the offerings and complete the thoughts, and to echo, amplify, or shrink from the feelings the work elicits. I tie the language to the visuals as an assist, and as a take-away gift.
     
    (Interview with Jenny Holzer and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, 2009)

  • Artist Biography

    Jenny Holzer

    American • 1950

    Jenny Holzer is a Conceptual artist best known for her text-based public art projects. Holzer's work speaks of violence, oppression, sexuality, feminism, power, war and death. Throughout the years, Holzer has employed a variety of media, from a T-shirt to a plaque to an LED sign. Starting in the 1970s with the New York City posters, and continuing through her recent light projections on landscape and architecture, she uses her art as a form of communication and commentary. Holzer's art hangs in important collections around the globe including 7 World Trade Center, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

    View More Works

95

Under a Rock

1986

Electronic LED sign with red and green diodes.

9 1/2 x 112 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. (24.1 x 285.8 x 14 cm).
This work is from an edition of six.

Estimate
$60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for $104,500

80s

17 December 2010
New York