Selections from Truisms

Description

March 28 2009
Jenny Holzer is an installation and conceptual artist whose primary medium is words. She often uses language to draw attention to and undermine habits of thought that go unnoticed. Her Truisms are a constantly evolving collection of several hundred phrases, ideas, and asides—made up or appropriated from diverse sources—that includes such provocative one-liners as: “a little knowledge goes a long way;” “there is a fine line between information and propaganda;” “money creates taste;” and, “freedom is a luxury not a necessity.”
The Truisms have appeared in many forms. Their first incarnation as a public art project was in 1977–79, when Holzer anonymously posted inexpensive, commercially printed broadsheets on buildings, walls, and telephone booths in and around Manhattan. Her pithy, ironic, and acerbic aphorisms were meant to be provocative and elicit public debate. In subsequent years they appeared on posters, billboards, and, as here, LED (light emiting diode) displays and have been exhibited in prominent public places like Times Square, as well as museums and galleries. Just as the content of the Trusims often mimics advertising slogans, Holzer has borrowed from marketing practice and emblazoned them on coffee mugs, t-shirts, pencils, baseball caps, and golf balls.