Jenny Holzer — The Venice Installation, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1990

Published by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, to accompany Jenny Holzer's presentation at the United States Pavilion during the 44th Venice Biennale, 1990. Softcover, 50 pages, 14 × 21.5 cm.

In Venice, Holzer moved her texts from posters and electronic signs into architecture. Four darkened rooms combined scrolling LED displays with inscribed marble floors and stone benches, giving statements about power, violence, grief and survival the physical authority of a monument. It was the first solo presentation by a woman at the US Pavilion; the pavilion received the Golden Lion for Best National Presentation.

The book performs the reverse operation. It removes the language from stone, light and institutional spectacle and returns it to the portable page. Texts including Holzer's Truisms (1977–79) can be read without glare or interruption, arranged as language rather than installation.

Its design retains something of the original tension: textured charcoal-grey wrappers, deep red lettering, black-and-white interiors and a pink-and-grey diamond-patterned title page. Part stone sample, part instruction manual. The pavilion was built to surround the body. The book makes it circulate.

Condition: Very good vintage condition, with light edge and shelf wear and a small crease to the lower corner of the rear wrapper.