New York City AIDS Memorial Features Work by Jenny Holzer, Based on Walt Whitman

Jenny Holzer's first permanent installation in New York City is a poetry-based piece, based on Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." For this new work, dedicated to "the over 100,000 New Yorkers who have died since the epidemic began 35 years ago," Holzer "has engraved the granite paving stones at the foot of the memorial with excerpts from Walt Whitman’s 1855 poem 'Songs of Myself.' The poet, who is thought to have been gay, is a fitting choice for the memorial given the severity of the AIDS epidemic in New York’s LGBT community." More via Artnet News:

“The Whitman poem is a beauty from a man in full and glad possession of his body,” the artist told the Art Newspaper. She is also working with Google to develop an app that will augment the piece, which is her first permanent installation in New York City.

Towering above Holzer’s work, the 18-foot tall memorial was designed by the Brooklyn–based architecture firm Studio a+i. “There are no definite dates or victims,” said the firm of the canopy-like installation in a statement. “In our design process, we emphasize the changing and varied ways through which AIDS affects us personally and as a society.”

Read more at Artnet News.