Jenny Holzer’s Popular Truisms Get First Chinese LED Texts

September 19, 2013, 6:41pm

Widely regarded as one of the key pioneers of text art, American conceptualist Jenny Holzer is best known for her use of LED lights and equipment as part of large scale works and gallery exhibits (most notable at The Whitney in 2009). Now for the first time, the artist is presenting some of her most famous works translated into Chinese at the Pearl Lam Galleries in Hong Kong. As part of the exhibit, selections from her seminal texts ‘Truisms’, ‘Living’, and ‘Survival’ are displayed in a minimalist setting.

One of the most exciting parts of the exhibition is Holzer’s largest LED gallery work to date, a sprawling monument to modernity comprising over 25 LED elements. Called ‘Light Stream’ the piece fits right in with the city’s frenetic pace, and displays rapidly flickering texts that intertwine to create a mini-metropolis of pulsating lights.

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“Though I rely on minimalist configurations, for decades I have wanted to offer a massive, irrational, unpredictable heap of glittering displays. I am happy about the paradox — what appears wild, chaotic, and spontaneous is a greater technical puzzle and more difficult challenge to realize.” -Jenny Holzer

(left) Inclined, 2013

(right) Inclined, 2013 (detail)

LED sign with blue, green & red diodes

96 x 6 x 6 in. / 243.8 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm text: Truisms, 1977–79; installation: Light Stream, Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, 2013

(left) Inclined, 2013 (detail)

(right) Inclined, 2013

LED sign with blue, green & red diodes

96 x 6 x 6 in. / 243.8 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm text: truisms, 1977–79; installation: Light Stream, Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, 2013

Light Stream, 2013 (detail)

28 LED signs with blue, green, red & white diodes

text: Truisms, 1977–79; Survival, 1983–85; Living, 1980–82; installation: Light Stream, Pearl Lam Galleries, HoKg kong, 2013

Light Stream, 2013 (detail)