Biography
The American installation and conceptual artist, Jenny Holzer, came to prominence in the late 1970s. Renowned for her dramatic and intentionally provocative use of text and language, she frequently employs modern technology as her artistic medium. She has projected her statements onto the landscape, printed t-shirts, created posters and plastered them around cities and flashed them as LED signs. In these messages, Holzer tackles issues such as the environment, class and family structures, and war. Her work deliberately subverts established traditions regarding art, such as where it should be shown, for whom, and with what intention. In 1990 she represented America at the Venice Biennale and her installation was awarded first prize.
Glossary terms
Postmodernism
Late twentieth century art that includes a great variety of styles, so is hard to define but is often characterised as a reaction against the formalism perceived to dominate Modernism. In architecture, it describes a style which borrows from many different traditions and which contrasts with the clarity and simplicity of many modernist buildings.