Jenny Holzer, the conceptual artist behind the large-scale slogans that project our deepest fears or desires (Protect me from what I want, Raise boys and girls the same way), first started toying with words in her work as a young art student in New York in the late ’70s. Just before Ronald Reagan took office, the artist, then in her late 20s, created a series of posters called Truisms that combined a number of aphorisms from a variety of juxtaposing sources into a single white sheet of paper. She plastered the pages all over Times Square and referred to them as, “Jenny Holzer’s Readers Digest Version to Western and Eastern Thought.”
She followed up later that year with another series of signs called Inflammatory Essays; this time with a range of bright colored posters featuring more aggressive maxims inspired by writings by communists and anarchists such as Mao, Lenin, Valerie Solanas, and Emma Goldman meant to further provoke her audience. The phrases she wrote down and distributed ranged from far-left-leaning to far-right-leaning thoughts, and reading them today, in this time of ultra-polarization and fake news accusations, they seem chillingly prescient: Fear is the most elegant weapon, Force anxiety to excruciating levels or gently undermine the public confidence, Conflict of interest must be seen for what it is.
Todd Alden, the director of the Alden Projects art gallery, has been collecting Holzer’s early posters ever since he moved to New York in the late ’80s. “The first time I found the essays, [they] were in a plastic ziplock bag in Printed Matter and I thought they were the most extraordinary things,” he explained. “Urgent and political—I loved the fact that they were inexpensively distributed. They are basically conceptual artworks that are also street art.” For years, Alden sought out the posters and eventually amassed a collection of more than 100 sheets of paper. The day after the election, Alden, like many other art figures, began thinking about ways he could address the incoming administration. “I realized there were two shows that I had to do. One was John Heartfield, who was a German artist who made art about the Nazis, or Jenny Holzer,” he said. “But I woke up and I saw one of Jenny’s posters on my wall.”
“Rejoice! Our Times Are Intolerable: Jenny Holzer’s Street Posters, 1977-1982,” opening today, is the first exhibition to ever feature a comprehensive look at Holzer’s early sheets of paper. The series, with its timely political language and eye-catching hues, is all but certain to become a massive hit on Instagram. “These posters were originally made to occupy public spaces,” Alden added. “I’m hoping that people will see this as a model for political activism, and as a model for speaking out, both about our media culture today and our political situation.” You’ve heard the man! Time to start posting.
“Rejoice! Our Times Are Intolerable: Jenny Holzer’s Street Posters, 1977-1982” runs through February 12 at Alden Projects at 34 Orchard Street, New York.