DON’T MISS – SEOUL: JENNY HOLZER AT KUKJE GALLERY THROUGH OCTOBER 16TH, 2011

DON’T MISS – SEOUL: JENNY HOLZER AT KUKJE GALLERY THROUGH OCTOBER 16TH, 2011

October 12th, 2011

Jenny Holzer at Kukje Gallery. All Images Courtesy of Kukje Gallery, 2011.
American artist Jenny Holzer presents her latest solo show at the Kukje Gallery in Seoul, South Korea. She continues her trademark use of language, illuminated aesthetically and metaphorically in streaming signs, prints, and furniture.
Holzer first received recognition for her work with words in 1986, when she engraved benches with text. Later, she adapted previously projected signs into her own original electronic emissions, and now has combined her unique phrasing with L.E.D. signage.
More text and images after the jump…

In creating the flashing screens, Holzer works with electricians to challenge and reorient communication altogether, literally redistributing fragmented mass media for further address and analysis. The L.E.D. lights convey a sense of urgency, while conversely the engraved furniture pieces function as harrowing, disquieting mementos. The initial intent of each medium ultimately counteracts itself as the overstimulating media becomes background, and the engravings endure a sense of the eternal.


In addition to text, Holzer also includes black and white prints—images of London, Berlin, Rome, and other major cities, seeming to further imbue both concepts of time and monument with melancholy.


Holzer has been defined in a league with other well-known woman artists, arguably for the underlying tension of fragility and stimulation. The work has been aligned to the contemporary chameleon-like photo-portraits of Cindy Sherman, and to the autobiographical spiders of Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), and showcased at women’s colleges Barnard and Smith. In addition to exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and both the New York and Bilbao Guggenheim Museums, Holzer’s work has also been shown at the Reichstag and 7 World Trade Center. Holzer had a previous solo exhibition at the Kukje Gallery in 2004.

-A. Bregman