Contemporary Art

Jenny Holzer Installation at MASS MoCA

A keystone element of MASS MoCA’s upcoming major expansion is a 20-year exhibition of new and existing works by Jenny Holzer (b. 1950, Gallipolis, OH). Highly regarded for her unique and conceptually rigorous art focusing on political and social consciousness, her installation in a newly renovated 10,000 square-foot gallery will feature light projections employing poetry. This new work will extend Holzer’s well-received exhibition at MASS MoCA in 2007-2008 entitled Projections, and will similarly create an immersive environment in which legible texts overlap and ride into a surround of white light and language. Using multiple projectors, Holzer transforms a seemingly empty room into a flooded meeting place of bodies, words, and visual subtleties.

In addition to the projections exhibition, Holzer will develop a campus-wide series of works in other media including familiar vehicles such as carved stone benches and electronic signage, and new vehicles such as free apps for smartphones to create augmented reality projections across the museum campus and onto surrounding neighborhoods and hillsides. This will be the largest and longest-running exhibition of Holzer’s work to date.

Holzer’s projections have taken place in five continents, over a dozen countries, and nearly forty cities. The Barbara Lee Family Foundation is delighted to provide support to MASS MoCA to bring Holzer’s work to the people of Massachusetts in 2017 and for many years to come.