THE ART NEWSPAPER: Jenny Holzer draws on Walt Whitman for AIDS memorial

Written By Peter Freeby

The US artist Jenny Holzer, who is known for her LED light pieces and truisms carved into stone, is contributing to a new app linked to a memorial in New York commemorating the men, women and children who have died from HIV/Aids. 

The app, which will be produced by Google, accompanies Holzer’s text installation for the New York City Aids Memorial, which is due to be unveiled near the former St Vincent’s hospital in the West Village in 2016.

“Excerpts from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman will be the text on the granite paving stones. The Whitman poem is a beauty from a man in full and glad possession of his body,” Holzer tells us. “The app should add content from visitors and from other authors—I’m thinking a lot about David Wojnarowicz, for example—for a rich mix,” she says. Wojnarowicz, a New Jersey-born artist and activist, died of Aids-related illnesses in 1992. “I hope we’ll realise a great app that will permit people to commemorate the loved,” Holzer says.

Peter Freeby

I design and build books, periodicals, brand materials, websites and marketing for a range of artists, non profits and educational programs including Elizabeth Murray, Jack Tworkov, Edith Schloss, Janice Biala, Joan Witek, George McNeil, Judy Dolnick, Jordan Eagles, John Silvis, Diane Von Furstenberg, The Generations Project, The Koch Institute, The McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute and the Dow Jones News Fund.

https://peterfreeby.com
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