Jenny Holzer

Xenon for Torino is named after the noble gas xenon, which is used for lighting and projections. The work belongs to the series Xenon for... that Jenny Holzer has created since the mid-1990s for various cities around the world, including Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Oslo, Paris, New York, Rome, Berlin, Florence and Venice. Texts chosen by the artist or written by her are projected in English and in the local language on the façades of the most central and representative buildings, in places that ensure that the message conveyed is as visible as possible. In Turin, the choice fell first on Palazzo Carignano and then on the medieval façade of Palazzo Madama, where excerpts from her Truism (1977-1978) and Blue (1998) series were screened in three 45-minute sequences. 

Jenny Holzer (Gallipolis, Ohio, 1950) began her artistic activity in the field of conceptual art and feminist theories, putting up posters and stickers with short texts in block letters on the streets of New York without a permit in response to the urgency to discuss social issues and address injustices and hypocrisies. Among the assertive and impersonal phrases of her Truism, (the “obvious truths”, from the word “true”) with which she urges passers-by to reflect on their position, one reads: “Protect me from what I want / Money creates taste / Abuse of power comes as no surprise / Who is not afraid, is mad.” 

Her texts have found the most varied media over time, from t-shirts to marble carvings and, starting with the installation in Time Square in 1982, she has also used variable message LED light panels. Holzer, who won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and the Public Art Network Award in 2004, is one of the most recognised artists on the international scene. 

Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata