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Survival: Savor Kindness Because Cruelty is Always Possible Later,
2003.
Imperial white marble, 16 15/16 x 22 13/16 x 15 3/4 inches.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
Given in Honor of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection by Art of This Century, Sandro Rumney, Nicolas Helion, and the Artist, 2003.
2003.73.
© 2007 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
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Jenny Holzer's Truisms, a series of one-line statements somewhere between cliché and subversive provocation, rely exclusively on the power of language to convey their message. Holzer (b. 1950, Gallipolis, Ohio) wrote several hundred Truisms during the late 1970s and early 1980s, including A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE GOES A LONG WAY; A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS; ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE; and PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT. When Holzer began writing these as a student in 1977, she typed the phrases on paper and pasted them up anonymously around New York City; in 1982, the Truisms flashed continuously on an electronic billboard in Times Square, reaching the public on a grand scale. For Holzer's public projects, visibility and accessibility are crucial. Her marble benches, begun in 1987, use a familiar and inviting form to compel viewers forward to inspect their inscriptions. Uniting the commonplace with an authoritative formal vocabulary—the typeface of the inscriptions is an official government style still used on war memorials and headstones—Holzer in effect creates a setting for individual contemplation of the human condition.
Meghan Dailey
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