Truisms and Essays

Jenny Holzer received her MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and started as an abstract artist. Holzer was looking for a more “modern way to communicate the fast-paced contemporary culture that was on the rise during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Using text to be discernible, Holzer wanted the public to forcibly notice and start discussions. The language invades public settings such as billboards, park benches, electronic signs, etc. 

In the late 1970s, Jenny Holzer inexpensively printed and anonymously posted the sheets in popular, public areas of New York City. As part of a bigger exploration, these sheets known as Holzer’s Inflammatory essays, elicit the public to inspect power structures in our society. Each sheet contains 20 lines with exactly 100 words. The perspective and tone shift throughout and doesn’t reflect Holzer's view, but are borrowed from political theorists, religious fanatics, and anarchists. The intense, contradictive statements are juxtaposed in a stiff format. Holzer explored more political and controversial statements. She refers to the one-liners that make paragraphs as Truisms. Holzer revisits the contents of this piece in other formats of merchandise and printed products to make her art more widely accessible. 

Her work has been translated into different languages and displayed worldwide. She has adapted the project with technological advances by using LED signs to display the text. 

Holzer was part of Colab, a New York City artists’ group. Another female contemporary around this time includes Barbara Kruger who’s work also includes mass communication, word art, and prints.