The project is part of Hauser & Wirth’s #artforbetter initiative through which the gallery will provide charitable support in response to both global and local causes. To acknowledge this important landmark in the history of Earth Day and the current situation in which many of us are isolated, 100% of proceeds of sales will go to charitable partners, split equally between the conservation initiative Art for Acres and the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO.
The artist’s contribution for Earth Day 2020 continues a deep-rooted tradition linking printmaking and environmental activism: in 1970, Robert Rauschenberg created the first graphic image to support the first national awareness campaign for Earth Day in the United States. For Holzer, print and activism have been core pillars of an artistic practice spanning 40 years. Beginning in the 1970s with posters wheat-pasted throughout New York City, her oeuvre continues to provoke public debate and illuminate social and political injustice through language and media. Her texts have been emblazoned on T-shirts, carved in stone, painted on canvas, programmed into LED signs, and luminously projected onto buildings and landscapes.
The print itself has been created by Powerhouse Arts, a not-for-profit based in Gowanus and Red Hook, Brooklyn, established to create a robust platform for art production and employment in the arts. Luther Davis, the Printshop Director at Powerhouse Arts, enlisted the help of fellow Powerhouse Arts printmaker Leslie Diuguid who was able to create the print from her home studio, Du-Good Press, during this period of essential lockdown.
Addressing oppression, gender, sexuality, power, and war, Holzer’s Truisms challenge expectations and prejudices by presenting authoritative-seeming statements that reveal questions and contradictions upon closer inspection. The text selected for the print, ‘ALL THINGS ARE DELICATELY INTERCONNECTED’, has been utilised in Holzer’s work since the late 1970s and early 1980s, where her Truisms were seen on an electronic signboard above Times Square. On Earth Day 2020, the statement adeptly provokes reflection on the pressing demands of a global pandemic as well as the continuing climate crisis. Through her distinctive use of language, Holzer’s work continues to wield art as a powerful force for reflection and change.
