Jenny Holzer at MASS MoCA

Jenny Holzer’s concise, often enigmatic writings infiltrate public life and consciousness through everyday objects such as LED panels and stone benches, as well as her paintings and sculpture. She is best known for her light projections, begun when she illuminated the banks of the Arno River with her writings in 1996. In these projections, which have now appeared in over 40 cities in 20 countries, stark block lettering is thrown onto landscapes and architecture, creating ephemeral graffiti that links her early street-based practice to her long-standing engagement with media and tactics common to news and advertising. Following her monumental installation in MASS MoCA’s Building 5 in 2007—which marked her first indoor projection in the U.S.—Holzer’s work has been on view in the Robert W. Wilson Building (Building 6) since 2017. Her works at MASS MoCA have included For North Adams, an outdoor projection on the River Street side of the factory’s complex (summer 2017), and the siting of twenty-one of her carved stone benches across MASS MoCA’s sixteen-acre campus. A selection of her stone benches are currently on long-term view throughout the Robert W. Wilson Building; a full list of works currently on view and their locations can be found in the checklist linked below.

View the checklist for Indoor Works.

Download the Jenny Holzer map here.

Further Reading
Street Art: Prints and Precedents, Art in Print, October 2011
An Interview with Jenny Holzer, Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Prose, 1990
Jenny Holzer in “Protest”, Art21, November 2007
Jenny Holzer’s Blowtorch in the Darkness, Hyperallergic, January 2017

Principal exhibition support is provided by Anne and Gregory Avis. Major exhibition support is provided by the VIA Art Fund. Contributing exhibition support is provided by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation.

Jenny Holzer, Truisms: A strong sense of duty…, 1987 (detail)
© 1987 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Photo: Jason Wyche