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March 12–May 31, 2009
 
Using language as her medium, Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) has created acritically important body of work over the past three decades. Her textshave appeared in nontraditional media such as posters and electronicsigns, billboards and T-shirts, and most recently as dematerialized,luminous projections on surfaces as different as crashing ocean wavesand the Louvre’s large glass pyramid. Perhaps surprising for those whohave followed the work of this artist for many years, her chosen textsrecently have been rendered in oil paintings and in dazzling, large-scaleelectronic sculptures. While the political content of Holzer’s latest workts in the tradition of Goya, the ethereal color and architectural scaledraw inspiration from Matisse, Malevich, Rothko, and LeWitt.The works in this exhibition feature selections of Holzer’s writingsfrom 1977 to 2001, as well as declassied pages from U.S. governmentdocuments she has used as source material since 2004. The exhibition’ssubtitle PROTECT PROTECT derives from texts detailing plans for theIraq war, yet it also relates to the problematic power of personal desire,as encapsulated in one of Holzer’s best-known statements: PROTECT MEFROM WHAT I WANT.Whether she is using her own idiomatic texts, borrowing the wordsof international poets, or citing formerly classied materials containingpolicy debates, battle plans, and testimonies of American soldiers anddetainees in U.S. custody, Holzer works between the public and private,the body politic and the body, the universal and the particular. Alwaystimely, she provides a range of opinions, attitudes, and voices in worksinfused with formal beauty, sensitivity, and power.
REDACTION PAINTINGS
For these paintings, Holzer worked with materials from the NationalSecurity Archive, a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization thatcollects declassied government documents and makes them availableto the public, and from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),which makes formerly classied information available to the publicon its website. Subject matter deemed too sensitive for the publiceye was blacked out, or redacted, by government censors during thedeclassication process. Under the landmark Freedom of Information Actpassed in 1966, all are now public record, though some remain heavilyredacted. When Holzer reproduces these materials, she includes themwhole and verbatim. The various styles of marking and redacting give
 
evidence to the number of individuals involved in both the execution of thewar and the management of its information, lending a human presenceto the blank face of bureaucracy. The paintings’ source materials includeautopsy reports of detainees in the Middle East, correspondence anddocuments related to detainee interrogation, redacted handprints ofU.S. military personnel accused of crimes, and maps from a PowerPointpresentation given by the U.S. military’s Central Command to the WhiteHouse that delineate and propose various strategies and plans for theinvasion of Iraq.
ELECTRONIC SIGNS
Holzer began writing early in her career; her most well-known texts are the
Truisms (1977–79) and Inammatory Essays (1979–82). She uses variousmedia to disseminate her writings, particularly LED (light-emitting diode)signs, which are commonly used for advertising and to report the news inthe public realm. The LED signs in this exhibition draw from declassiedgovernment documents as well as the thirteen texts written by Holzerfrom 1977 to 2001. Documents have been re-keyed for the LED works andonly changed as necessary for the medium. For example, redactions arerepresented by a series of X’s.The artist carefully considers every aspect of the signs from shape,font, and color choice to the pace of the scroll and movement of the text.In some cases the intent of the work is to soothe; in others, to repel ormake the viewer uncomfortable. Holzer’s light sculptures have both anintimacy and grandeur, and create almost force elds around and withinthe spaces they dene, transforming the contemporary gallery’s “whitecube” into an immersive environment.Red Yellow Looming (2004), Thorax (2008), and Purple (2008)are programmed with declassied documents. Red Yellow Loomingtouches on policy-making and public debate as it unfolded through thepresidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Thedocuments deal with such issues as the international trade in arms andoil, the “war” on terrorism, 9/11, and the FBI and CIA, but all concernevents prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Thorax presents an arrayof documents concerning one case in which an Iraqi non-combatantwas killed by American forces. The documents contain many conictingaccounts of the same incident from different perspectives. Purpleincludes autopsy reports of detainees that died while in
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