Jenny Holzer guest edits Wallpaper’s October 2019 issue

As per Wallpaper* tradition, we've handed over the reins to two trailblazing talents for our October issue (W*247). Joining fellow Guest Editor Hussein Chalayan, artist Jenny Holzer mixes paint and politics in our biggest – and most anticipated – issue of the year

Jenny Holzer Guest Editor Cover from the Wallpaper* October 2019 issue

Guest Editor Jenny Holzer's newsstand cover. Maybe this will help, 2019 (detail) by Jenny Holzer, among a new series of watercolours previewed in her section

(Image credit: TBC)

By Ari Marcopoulos - Photography

last updated 21 August 2022

in Features

The artist Jenny Holzer has used epigrams, Truisms as she tags them, to mesmerising and energising effect. Whether fly-posted, lit up in LED, digitally animated or projected on landmark buildings at epic scale, her wry – and now overtly political – observations, and meme-inducing calls to action, appropriated absurdities and wrenching poetry have made Holzer a genuine cultural force.

In our October 2019 issue – on newsstands now – we visit Holzer at her Brooklyn studio, where she is mixing paint and politics, turning Trump-era redacted reports – from the Mueller investigation to released records of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and trading – into giant abstractions. For an artist who once wanted to paint like Rothko, they are a kind of reconnection, her own searing take on American sublime.

If you do the kind of work that might possibly effect change, why not?
Jenny Holzer

Get the full picture by subscribing to Wallpaper*, and read about fellow Guest Editor Hussein Chalayan's pages here.

Jenny Holzer featured in the Wallpaper* October 2019 issue — Portrait of Jenny Holzer. *Photography: Ari Marcopoulos*

Spread from Jenny Holzer's Guest Editor pages in Wallpaper* — Pictured in the spread, *"GRAND ANSWER",* by Jenny Holzer, 2019

Spread from the Wallpaper* October 2019 issue — Pictured in the spread, *Donald Trump’s*, by Jenny Holzer, 2019

INFORMATION