Quotes by Jenny Holzer

About Jenny Holzer:

Jenny Holzer is an American Neo-conceptual art artist who utilizes the rhetoric of modern information systems so as to address the politics of discourse. In 1989 she became the first female artist to represent the United States at Italy's Venice Biennale. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It can be kind of gruesome at times, making things alone.

Jenny Holzer

It's necessary to start most work alone. But I'm tickled to death when I can pull somebody in or join someone, whether it's borrowing poetry or traveling with an associate.

Jenny Holzer

I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand.

Jenny Holzer

I suspect you've noticed that making art can be lonely.

Jenny Holzer

That's the test of street art - to see if anybody stopped. People would cross out ones they didn't like and would star others. I liked that people would engage with them.

Jenny Holzer

If you behaved nicely, the communists wouldn't exist.

Jenny Holzer

Well, I think in trying to make life seem real enough that one is moved to do something about the more atrocious things. By going really far afield into a completely fake world, maybe there's a chance to make things resonant somehow - or in this case...

Jenny Holzer

The desperate things seem to require attention, the lovely things seem to elicit celebration. If I had to choose, I would go to the awful in the hope that doing something could yield a happier result.

Jenny Holzer

Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid.

Jenny Holzer

Lack of charisma can be fatal.

Jenny Holzer

The most profound things are inexpressible.

Jenny Holzer

One thing that changed when I moved upstate was that I became interested in different materials. I started making the stone benches because I was seeing rocks.

Jenny Holzer

I'm always trying to bring unusual content to a different audience - a non-art-world audience.

Jenny Holzer

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

Jenny Holzer

I am not free because I can be exploded anytime.

Jenny Holzer

I get up about four times a night and go back to sleep, or not. Then I swill tea around 8 a.m. I answer e-mail, while I stall thinking about whatever scares me.

Jenny Holzer

I really like doing the laundry, because I succeed at it. But I loathe putting it away. It is already clean.

Jenny Holzer

I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!

Jenny Holzer

I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.

Jenny Holzer

The epiphany for me was that I wasn't a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the streets as posters.

Jenny Holzer

Author Bio

  • NameJenny Holzer
  • DescriptionAmerican conceptual artist
  • BornJuly 29, 1950
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionArtist; Painter; Sculptor
  • Works125 Years
  • AwardsRome Prize;