Holzer, Jenny

Jenny Holzer (1950-), one of the most influential conceptual and multimedia artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, was the first woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale (1990). Born in Ohio, she now resides and works in Manhattan, as well as on her farm in Hoosick Falls, New York. Holzer received a bachelor of arts degree from Ohio University in 1972 and a master's of fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977, before moving to New York City in the late 1970s, where she pursued writing at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Soon she realized that her strength was in conceptual art rather than in writing: “The epiphany for me was that I wasn't a writer, and ...