Josie Thaddeus-Johns at The Baffler:
IN 1997, when Jenny Holzer created Installation for Bilbao for the Spanish city’s newly opened Guggenheim, social media did not exist. Google had yet to be founded; dial-up internet meant listening to an inhuman caterwaul every time you connected; and when a webpage included a large image, one line of pixels arrived at a time, like tweets on a moving feed.
Twenty-two years later, the minimalist artist has returned to the Frank Gehry-designed museum with an extensive collection of new and archival works. Though “Thing Indescribable” is not quite a retrospective, the show covers her entire career, beginning with the series Truisms, a now-iconic set of phrases that she wrote between 1977 and 1979. Originally pasted up in public spaces around New York, they later made their way onto benches, electronic signs, and T-shirts, turning her words into public sculptures.
more here.