Barbara Kruger, (1987), Fotofolio, Card, 1989. Size: 6 x 4.5 inches — For Sale
Barbara Kruger’s art combines words with images to make social statements. Stylistically, she uses the color red and bold typefaces like Futura and Helvetica. This Fotofolio postcard was sold at the Whitney Museum at the time of the 1989 exhibition Image World: Art and Media Culture.
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While words appear in the work of Cubist, Surrealist and other early 20th century artists, it wasn’t until the latter half of the century with the rise of Pop and Conceptual art, that words and text became a common motif of art. For those interested in this kind of work, we have made it easy to find and explore by creating its own thematic category.
Although Ed Ruscha is arguably the text-and-word art master, words have also been central to the work of numerous other artists like Lawrence Weiner, Robert Barry, the Guerrilla Girls, Christopher Wool, Barbara Kruger, On Kawara, Glenn Ligon, and Jenny Holzer. With the rise of graffiti in the late 1970s and 80s, “word art” began to enjoy wide popularity as a distinctive new form of calligraphy.
See more Text and Word Art on Gallery 98
Conceptual Artist Jenny Holzer
42nd Street Art Project, with Jenny Holzer and other artists, Creative Time, Double-Sided Folded Brochure, 1993. Size: 9 x 4 inches (Folded) 27 x 9 inches (Unfolded)
In 1993, Jenny Holzer used some of her “Truisms” on the empty marquees of 42nd Street theaters. She was one of seventeen artists who participated in Creative Time’s 42nd Street Art Project, a series of commissions intended to temporarily embellish empty buildings while the Times Square area was undergoing major redevelopment.
See more Jenny Holzer ephemera
Conceptual Artist Adrian Piper
Adrian Piper, Calling Cards (1986), MoMA, 3 Different Cards, Reissue from 2018. Size: 3.5 x 2 inches each — For Sale
Much of Adrian Piper’s art deals with her own experiences as a light-skinned black woman. These cards, originally made in the 1980s, were reissued in 2018 and given away in conjunction with Piper’s major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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Ericka Beckman & Alfredo Jaar – Spectacolor Lightboard
Ericka Beckman, Advertisement for GITSO TRUST, Public Art Fund, Card, 1988. Size: 7 x 5 inches — For Sale
Alfredo Jaar, A Logo for America, Public Art Fund, Card, 1987. Size: 7 x 5 inches — For Sale
The Spectacolor Lightboard was created in 1977 for Times Square advertising. In 1982, the Public Art Fund launched “Messages to the Public,” an exhibition series that invited selected artists to create 30-second, computer-animated artworks.
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Conceptual Artist Hamish Fulton
Hamish Fulton, A Seventeen Day Walk in The Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Autumn, 1984, John Weber Gallery, Three-Fold Card, 1985. Size: 5 x 6.25 inches — For Sale
Hamish Fulton’s art focuses on his nature walks. Most of his works use photographs as documentation, but this announcement card uses only words to evoke visuals.
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Expressionist Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Works in Black and White, Robert Miller Gallery, Artforum Advertisement, 1994. Size: 10.5 x 10.5 inches — For Sale
In the early part of his career, Jean-Michel Basquiat carried around notebooks in which he wrote down words, phrases and ideas that caught his attention. Gallery 98’s Marc H. Miller likes to think that this 1983 text might be Basquiat’s reaction to the 30-minute interview he had recently done with him for an educational videotape series. It is more likely though, that the text was Basquiat’s response to the constantly playing TV in his studio.
See more Jean-Michel Basquiat ephemera
Conceptual Artist Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner, Quid Pro Quo, Gagosian Gallery (Rome), Card, 2008. Size: 12 x 5 inches — For Sale
Conceptual Art’s emphasis on ideas contributed to bringing words into the art mainstream. Lawrence Weiner isolated evocative phrases, giving them greater prominence by altering the ways in which they are seen and contextualized. Perhaps he chose this Latin phrase because the exhibition was at Gagosian Gallery in Rome.
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Conceptual Artist Mel Bochner
Mel Bochner, Constants & Variables 1966-96, Sonnabend Gallery, Card, 1996. — For Sale
Mel Bochner, Blah Blah Blah, Park Avenue Armory, Card, 2009. Size: 4.75 x 6.5 inches — For Sale
As a conceptual artist in the late 1960s and 70s, Mel Bochner worked primarily with an abstract vocabulary of lines, spaces and geometric shapes. More recently, he has been emphasizing words and treating them both as an abstract element, and as a conveyor of ideas.
Pop Artist Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha (Cover), The End, Anthology Film Archives, January-February-March Program, 2007. Size: 8.5 x 11 inches — For Sale
Since the 1960s Pop artist Edward Ruscha has used words and text as the principal subject of his art. In some works like this cover for an Anthology Film Archives program, he simply appropriates words that are in themselves popular images.
