Lot 3 - Jenny Holzer (American, b. 1950) The Violence of Handwriting Across a Page - 2022, (signed)

From one of the world’s most revered conceptual artists.

Starting bid: $350
Estimated value: $400-$600
Buyer's premium: 18%

DESCRIPTION:
Louise Bourgeois (French, b. 1911) x Jenny Holzer (American, b. 1950) The Violence of Handwriting Across a Page - 2022, exhibition book, numbered and signed by Jenny Holzer

Dimensions - approx. 16 inches x 16 inches x 2 inches

PROVENANCE:
JRP Editions - Geneva, Switzerland
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2024

ABOUT:
Jenny Holzer is one of the best-known conceptual artists of the 20th century. She began her art career in the late 1970s, pasting broad sheets with text in public spaces throughout Manhattan, and later creating large (often electronic) signs with such phrases as "All things are delicately interconnected," "Men don’t protect you anymore," and "Protect me from what I want." She’s long been one of the country’s most celebrated artists, with pieces installed at the now-gone World Trade Center, and multiple exhibitions at the Guggenheim.

The piece here is a limited edition signed book, in its original box. Although it was created and signed by Jenny Holzer, it interestingly isn’t made up of her work. It instead is filled with cropped views of pieces from the late artist Louise Bourgeois, for an exhibition Holzer curated in 2022 for Kunstmuseum Basel.

Louise Bourgeois lived a remarkable artist's life of her own. She was born in Paris in 1911, ran her own gallery in her 20s, married and moved to New York City where she lived the rest of her life as a very prolific painter and printmaker until her death in 2010. She was a renowned leader and teacher among female artists and revolutionary thinkers, and in her later years found acclaim as an artist of her age and generation.

So, Jenny Holzer was asked to curate an exhibition of Bourgeois' work, and she created the book here for that exhibition, a collage of sorts made by Holzer to frame what she saw as Bourgeois' preoccupations and obsessions, the things that tied her work together, as Holzer put together the exhibition. And so what we have is a very unique form of expression, combining two great artists, a book numbered and signed by Jenny Holzer.

*Condition report upon request.