Jenny Holzer Quotes & Sayings

“I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand.”

“I really like doing the laundry, because I succeed at it. But I loathe putting it away. It is already clean.”

“I suspect you've noticed that making art can be lonely.”

“I wanted to support things that are helpful to people and maybe bash what I think is dangerous. So I switched from being everybody to being myself.”

“The desperate things seem to require attention, the lovely things seem to elicit celebration. If I had to choose, I would go to the awful in the hope that doing something could yield a happier result.”

“The epiphany for me was that I wasn't a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the streets as posters.”

“Well, I think in trying to make life seem real enough that one is moved to do something about the more atrocious things. By going really far afield into a completely fake world, maybe there's a chance to make things resonant somehow - or in this case, truly terrifying. To make it as bad as the real stuff that's happening.”

“I am not free because I can be exploded anytime.”

“I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.”

“I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!”