Textdemic | A Retrospective on Jenny Holzer’s Laments

Ed. by A.L. Steiner and GenderFail

Textdemic | A Retrospective on Jenny Holzer’s Laments was A.L. Steiner's response to Jenny Holzer's exhibition at Dia Chelsea as part of the Artists on Artists Lecture Series.

Steiner departed from Jenny Holzer’s artwork "Laments" and invited Morgan Bassichis, Riel Bellow, Gregg Bordowitz, Alexander Chee, Malik Gaines, Guadalupe Maravilla + Alexa Mishell Guillen, Lucas Michael, Eileen Myles and Pamela Sneed to present in Dia’s first in-person program after the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2021. This publication features records of the poems, lectures and performances that took place during this memorial program.

The design of the book plays homage to the 1990 Laments publication by Dia Art Foundation.

As Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, Associate Curator at Dia Art Foundation and the organizer of the Artists on Artists Lecture Series, states in the book's afterword: “Dispensing altogether with the monographic formula that characterizes the institution, for her Lecture A.L. Steiner convened a group of artists, writers, and activists to join her in responding to Jenny Holzer’s 1989 text-based installation, Laments. Holzer identified the thirteen texts that comprise Laments as ‘voices of the dead,’ a visual choir in response to the raging HIV/AIDS epidemic and government inaction. Over the protracted COVID-19 lockdown, Steiner developed the idea to organize an evening for the voices of the living to lament the crises of today.”

Paperback / Pages: 140 / Year: 2023 / Dimensions: 21.7 x 12 cm./ Riso printed / Edition Size: 750