IMAGE: Jenny Holzer, IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY, 2022. Acrylic latex paint on stucco. Text: Survival, 1983–1985. © 2022 Jenny Holzer, ARS. Image courtesy The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Alex Boeschenstein.
Exhibition
Mural by Jenny Holzer: IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY
OCTOBER 15, 2022 – NOVEMBER 5, 2023
The Contemporary Austin’s Fall 2022 exhibition IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY took its title from an iconic text by Jenny Holzer. In conjunction with the exhibition and in collaboration with the artist, the museum presents Holzer’s text as a mural on the fascade of our downtown Austin building. The text derives from Holzer’s series Survival (1983–85), an exploration of the ways individuals respond to their political, social, physical, and psychological environments. Since its creation, the text has been presented in various formats, including plaques, LED signs, projections, and billboards.
Jenny Holzer (born 1950) is a conceptual and installation artist whose work deploys text in public spaces across an array of media, including electronic signs, carved stone, paintings, billboards, and prints. Holzer provokes public debate and illuminates social and political justice. Celebrated for her inimitable use of language and projects in the public sphere, Holzer creates a powerful tension between the realms of feeling and knowledge, with a practice that encompasses individual and collective experiences of power and violence, vulnerability and tenderness.
Holzer’s work has appeared in public places and exhibitions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. She was the first female artist to represent the United States with a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1990.
About the Artist
Jenny Holzer (born 1950) is a conceptual and installation artist whose work deploys text in public spaces across an array of media, including electronic signs, carved stone, paintings, billboards, and prints. Holzer provokes public debate and illuminates social and political justice. Celebrated for her inimitable use of language and projects in the public sphere, Holzer creates a powerful tension between the realms of feeling and knowledge, with a practice that encompasses individual and collective experiences of power and violence, vulnerability and tenderness.
Holzer’s work has appeared in public places and exhibitions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. She was the first female artist to represent the United States with a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1990.
About the Mural Program
Via the museum’s mural program, the Jones Center facade is transformed and activated as a prominent exhibition space. The presence of a mural at the museum’s central public location— blocks away from the state’s capitol building— activates the local environment and offers an extraordinarily accessible contemporary art experience amid downtown city life. Austin residents, workers, and visitors can live with a contemporary artist-created mural for an extended period of time—contemplating it at different times of day, developing a new relationship with an artist’s work, and experiencing contemporary art as a regular part of their lives—irrespective of ever stepping foot inside the museum. The mural at The Contemporary, presented alongside Jim Hodges’ With Liberty and Justice For All (A Work in Progress…), distinguishes the corner of 7th & Congress as a highly visible public art experience that is an integral part of all Congress Avenue has to offer.
Origin of the Mural Program
The mural program was born out of the challenges of the pandemic, as The Contemporary was driven to think creatively and resourcefully about how to connect the public with unique contemporary art experiences even during periods of social distancing. The program was launched with a new work by Austin-based artist Deborah Roberts (2021), followed by a large-scale mural of work by the beloved and iconic Daniel Johnston (2022), and most recently featured a text-based piece by internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer (2022)—each project presented in concert with an exhibition.
