JENNY HOLZER — Private Property Created Crime, Kunsthalle Basel / Le Nouveau Musée, 1984

Kunsthalle Basel / Le Nouveau Musée, Basel / Villeurbanne, 1984. Softcover artist book and exhibition catalogue, approx. 21.5 × 21.5 cm, 63 pp. Colour and black-and-white throughout. English.

Published to accompany exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel and Le Nouveau Musée, the book documents the period in which Holzer’s language circulated through posters, plaques, stickers, T-shirts, and electronic signs — establishing text as a public medium rather than a private literary form.

The photographs are arranged in discrete sequences: Truisms (1977–1983), Essays (1979–1983), Living (1981–1983), and Survival (1983–1984). A brief introduction by Jean-Christophe Ammann appears at the front, with a biography and bibliography at the rear.

Rather than functioning only as documentation, the book redistributes Holzer’s work in portable form. Street posters, Times Square signage, inscriptions, and public declarations are reorganised here as a sequence of appearances. The result sits somewhere between exhibition record, artist’s book, and distribution device.

A strong early Holzer title, and an especially clear document of the years in which her texts moved through the street, the billboard, and the page.

Condition: Light rubbing and wear to covers; very good overall. Original period publication.