May 2023
Jenny Holzer Holds First Solo Exhibition in Germany in 10 Years at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf
The American contemporary artist Jenny Holzer is the subject of a monumental solo exhibition, titled JENNY HOLZER, at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany. Marking the artist’s first solo exhibition in Germany in a decade, the presentation invites visitors to dive in to Holzer’s oeuvre that explores ideas about war, violence, abuse of power, idealism, and absurdism by using diverse materials including LED, poster, painting, and sculpture.
The exhibition spans K21’s Bel Etage and temporary exhibition galleries, as well as different public areas, introducing 20 works from the Redaction Painting series (created since 2005), 26 marble footstools, LEDs, and posters.
The first space of the exhibition—Bel Etage—presents works from Holzer’s Redaction Painting series. In the series, which translates government documents released by the Freedom of Information Act into paintings using oil on linen, the US state and military papers—already declassified but often heavily redacted—are turned into giant abstractions, with the black blocks of redactions rendered in palladium, gold, and platinum leaf. These paintings are shown alongside the artist’s Lustmord series, which criticizes the practice of war. The highlight of this series is the new LED work titled UKRAINE (2023), which presents the artist’s response to the current Russia-Ukraine war. The work incorporates excerpts from texts including the United Nations reports on war crimes and human-rights abuses in Ukraine, as well as the firsthand testimony of Ukrainian artists and writers.
In the temporary exhibition galleries, visitors can immerse themselves in works created with new techniques and formats, that reinterpret Holzer’s works from the past. Works from Truisms (1977-1979), written in English and German, along with posters from the Inflammatory Essays (1977-82) series, are recreated in the form of a site-specific mural in collaboration with the famous graffiti artist Lady Pink. Meanwhile, the Survival circle—deemed the highlight of the show—grasps the attention of viewers with its monumental scale consisting of 17 Indian red granite benches that were first presented at Holzer’s 1989 solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Meanwhile, Holzer also presents her texts in public in collaboration with Ströer—one of the sponsors for this solo exhibition—in the form of billboards installed in Düsseldorf’s major highways, subway stations, and the arrival hall in the airport throughout the exhibition period.