Jenny Holzer: Laments

An installation of new work by Jenny Holzer titled "Laments" will open at Dia Art Foundation, 548 West 22nd Street, on Thursday, March 2, 1989. The installation will continue through winter 1990. Hours are Thursday through Sunday, 12 noon - 6 p.m. Admission is free.

Holzer has worked on this project for Dia over the past year and a half, developing thirteen new texts titled "Laments" presented in this installation planned for the third floor of 548 West 22nd Street. Each text is programmed on a vertical electronic LED (light emitting diode) sign and also chiseled into a stone sarcophagus. The thirteen electronic signs are affixed to the faces of architectural columns throughout the floor of the building. The thirteen sarcophagi are arrayed in a long, contiguous gallery, each illuminated with a single spotlight. All natural light in the space has been blacked out. Holzer has described the "Laments" as "voices of the dead"--one infant, two children, and ten adults.

Extending this project, Holzer will complete a set of twenty short messages to be made available on VHS cassette, coupled with a small volume documenting the "Laments" and Dia's installation. This publication will be available in the late spring and will be announced at that time.

Dia Art Foundation is a tax-exempt charitable organization. Support for the exhibitions program at 548 West 22nd Street comes from the Cowles Charitable Trust and the Dia Art Council.

This project extends the commitment and program of Dia Art Foundation to suppport artists in undertaking ambitious projects which would be difficult to realize through other institutions and organizations. The unusually long period of the exhibitions--for nine to twelve months--has been planned to allow a large public from the metropolitan New York area, from the United States, and other countries to have the opportunity to view the exhibitions over time and through the possibility of repeated visits.

Jenny Holzer
Laments