The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between word and image in Jenny Holzer s work. Since she has first shown her controversial Truisms on anonymous street posters pasted throughout Manhattan, in 1977, critics have been privileging the content of her writings over its form. The present essay assumes that, although written language plays a central role in her work, the careful way she situates her texts in space, intertwining the textual and the visual, makes for an experience different from reading. The words are invested of materiality, color, light, rhythm and movement, outstanding both for their own presence and for their provocative content. This strategy highlights the gaps between word and image, content and form, knowledge and sensibility, questioning the legitimacy of these dualisms and pointing toward complex aesthetic effects that go beyond the meanings of the text.