Jenny Holzer

Gallipolis, Ohio, native Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) studied art at Ohio University and the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1990, she became the first woman to represent the United States at the prestigious Venice Biennale art exhibition. Holzer has won renown for several series of artworks using electronic signs, most involving light-emitting diode (LED) technology, and has created light-projections shows worldwide. In 1989, she assembled a major installation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York that included elements from her previous series and consisted of a large continuous LED display spiraling around the interior ramp of Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark building. Holzer believes in the communicative power of language, and her installation focused specifically on text. She invented saying with an authoritative tone for her LED displays – for example, “Protect me from what I want,” “Abuse of power comes as no surprise,” and “Romantic love was invented to manipulate women.” The statements, which people could read from a distance in the unique environment of the Guggenheim Museum, were intentionally vague and, in some cases, contradictory.^[1]