Jenny Holzer’s 2020: New York, activism, and collective mourning. Again.

The main objective of this paper is the study of Jenny Holzer’s latest works, specifically the Expose (2020) and Protect (2020) projects, from a comparative and historical perspective. The study opens by tracing the echoes – present in the works produced during the pandemic and the darkest time of the Trump administration – of a younger Jenny Holzer, who was struggling to emerge in the late 80s and early90s as she wanted to give voice to the desperation of New York, a city that had been brought to its knees both by the explosion of the AIDS virus, and the silence and indifference of Reagan’s policy on the issue.Secondly, I will offer some observations about the hitherto unseen interaction of Holzer’s well established artistic hallmarks – the trucks and the signboard, which she had been using since the 80s – with the use of social media, particularly Instagram, showing how venturing onto social media during the pandemic was a great occasion for Holzer to overcome the postmodern positions of her youth and to rediscover the more strictly political vein of her artistic practice.