“Untitled (DON'T SHOOT CIVILIANS)” by Jenny Holzer and Lady Pink
The art of both Jenny Holzer and Lady Pink takes place primarily in the public sphere. Holzer became known with conceptual, text-based works. She printed words and aphorisms (“Truisms”) on posters, advertising boards, T-shirts and stickers affixed in the New York City streetscape. The provocative works revolve primarily around political topics such as power structures, feminism, and power. Lady Pink was one of the protagonists of the early graffiti scene in New York.
In their collaborative paintings, which were created during the period 1983–85, the two artists combine concepts from Holzer’s text-based works with spray paintings by Lady Pink. The motifs were inspired by series of photos, taken by photojournalist Susan Meiselas, of the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In front of an urban background, the picture shows flames, a masked insurgent, and a tank. Holzer’s unequivocal appeal stretches across the entire image area: “DON’T SHOOT CIVILIANS”.
Peter and Irene Ludwig purchased the work in 1990 and donated it the same year as a permanent loan to the Neue Galerie in Aachen, today the Ludwig Forum for International Art. It is on show from spring 2021 in the exhibition “The Cool and the Cold. Painting from the USA and the USSR. Ludwig Collection” at the Gropius Bau in Berlin, or alternatively it can be viewed in the catalogue published prior to the exhibition opening.