Installation for Bilbao

Jenny Holzer began her first series, Truisms, in 1977 as a distillation of an erudite reading list from the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, where she was a student; by 1979 she had written several hundred of these one-liners. Beginning with A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE GOES A LONG WAY and ending with YOUR OLDEST FEARS ARE YOUR WORST ONES, the Truisms employ a variety of voices and express a wide spectrum of biases and beliefs. If any consistent viewpoint emerges in the edgy, stream-of-consciousness provocations, it is that truth is relative and that each viewer must participate in determining what is legitimate and what is not. Since the Truisms, Holzer has continued to use language as her primary medium and has employed myriad ways to convey her messages. Selections from her Inflammatory Essays series (1979–82), for example, appeared on unsigned, commercially printed posters pasted on buildings and walls around Manhattan.

When phrases by Holzer such as ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE and MONEY CREATES TASTE flashed from the Spectacolor board above Times Square in 1982, it marked her first appropriation of electronic signage. This mode of dissemination brought her disquieting messages to a new height of subversive social engagement. Her strategy—placing surprising texts where normal signage is expected—gives Holzer direct access to a large public that might not give "art" any consideration, while allowing her to undermine forms of power and control that often go unnoticed. Her installations over the last three decades have raised questions about the viability of public art, the commodification and consumption of art, and the relationship between the personal and the political.