Jenny Holzer: Dust Paintings

JENNY HOLZER

D U S T PA I N T I N G S

CHEIM & READ

JENNY HOLZER DUS T PA I N T I NGS

C H E I M & R E A D N EW YOR K 2014

Jenny Holzer’s Dust-Painting G o a little under two miles from the crossroads at Route 9 and watch for a homemade sign for a taxidermist on the right. Slow down and get ready for a turn onto an unmarked dirt road. Jenny’s farmhouse is the only one on this road. The barn, outbuildings, and house are grey. If you wind up in Hoosick Falls, you’ve gone too far. The other local lady-artist is Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses, who turned to painting in her seventies—after a career in embroidery—because of arthritis. She displayed her paintings in the local drugstore window before she was discovered and is buried in a cemetery across the fields. Her relatives have a roadside produce stand where old-timers know to buy delicious heirloom tomatoes.

Grandma Moses A Beautiful World 1948

In this American place, a decade ago, Jenny began making paintings based on declassified, redacted documents (from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), and in the most recent work, detainees describe being forced to kneel in the snow for many days, while a snow-and-water mix is poured on them. During interrogations they are repeatedly punched in the face, chest, and flank. The testimonies are painful to read, though there is a formal beauty to the calligraphy and brushwork of the paintings.

The sloped handwriting makes me think of the Islamic faith and how the written word has always been of central importance. In the earliest pages of the Koran, the pen and the writer are glorified.

Since the late 1970s, Jenny has made art in which words are central—with notable exceptions like the Black Garden of Nordhorn, Germany (a memorial to those who opposed the Nazi Party during the war), in which black plants and flowers communicate abstractly the idea that something is terribly wrong. When she was a little girl, Jenny drew horses. Later, when she was an art student, she made abstract paintings. The first painting she remembers seeing was a reproduction of the nineteenth-century French artist Rosa Bonheur’s “The Horse Fair,” in Lancaster, Ohio, where Jenny was raised. When she was five, her mother would drive her late at night, in the family’s Ford station wagon, to the local bar to tell her father to come home. In the smoky light of the bar, Bonheur’s “The Horse Fair” hung prominently.

Rosa Bonheur The Horse Fair 1852–55

As long as I have known Jenny, there has been a tension in her work between violence and peace, between productivity and destruction. She is interested in the defeated rather than conquerors. She is interested in individual human beings rather than conquests. She has an ethical temperament by nature that is always in negotiation with the troubled times in which she lives. The result is a body of work that sometimes asks us to change the way we think about art. I think her redaction paintings do this, though they relate to Andy Warhol’s mass-produced, silk-screened paintings from the 1960s—in particular, the lurid death-and-disaster series, in which newspaper and police archive photographs of car accidents, suicides, and electric chairs are appropriated, and the result both intensifies and blunts the disturbing imagery.

But there is less cynicism in Jenny’s paintings than in Warhol’s, though both take the pulse of the historical moment in which they were made. Jenny’s paintings exist, in part, as an act of faith that new possibilities might still open up in the world.

The soul seeks beauty, they say, even when evil is grasping at us. But hope is not something that we can see in the troubled world, so we see instead the things that

Andy Warhol 5 Deaths on Orange (Orange Disaster) 1963

we must hope against, like torture. Hope isn’t optimism either—it’s a belief in working for the good. For me, Jenny’s redaction paintings create a little episode of reverie and inwardness for the onlooker, and in doing this they create hope. They can’t stop a tank. They can’t stop a torturer. But maybe they can give a torturer pause. A good poem can do this, too.

What is the state of fellow man, her redactions paintings ask?

Is it true what

Freud said—that with only a few exceptions we are mostly worthless? Sometimes watching the evening news or reading the morning paper, I think, Every single word here is false! But then I remember that nothing exists for humans without words, so I try to be patient. This, in part, is why I value Jenny’s civic-minded paintings, even when they contain scary words, like “not electrocuted or burnt, no toe nails removed.” It must be a lonely endeavor to try to encourage public conversation—with art—about the “war on terrorism,” the practice of intelligence and counterintelligence, prisoner abuse, and the ongoing cost of war.

Jenny wants to bother people into discussion. And if a redaction painting can do this, why not try?

Though she has no wish to become part of the problem by

didactically telling people what to think. Aesthetic dignity is as important to her as being true to the negative evidence of history. This is why the paintings are occasionally beautiful, even when the words portray unspeakable acts. At first they might seem extreme, or even a kind of extremism, though Jenny is in fact a realist painter depicting nature as it is. In 1855, this is what Rosa Bonheur did, too, depicting the horse fair in Paris on the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, with her earth tones that bring us closer to the spooked horses and their powerful anatomies in curved postures, their hooves off the ground, and their manes swaying under a sky full of darkening clouds, while horsemen try to calm the animals, among them Bonheur dressed as a man to call less attention to herself.

Many of Jenny’s recent paintings reproduce documents resulting from an investigation into the death of a detainee in Afghanistan, Jamal Naseer. According to the ACLU, the documents “reveal charges that Special Forces beat, burned, and doused eight prisoners with cold water before sending them into freezing weather conditions.” One of the eight prisoners, Jamal Naseer, died in custody, but it was determined by the U.S. military that the charges of torture were not supported and that Naseer’s death was the result of a stomach ailment. Here is one painful text connected to the event: They (americans) came to the pass + we gave them chi we were arrested handcuff + the blind folded when we got here It was very cold. I was made to sit on my knees + they poured buckets of cold water on me. [redacted]. I could only have it when I moved. I was kicked + punched in the kidneys nose legs. If we moved from our knees we w ere beaten During iterrogation he was told If he lied we would be killed We were kicked during interrogations about 20 days 18 days snow was mixed with water + poured on us. I was beated 18 days. The body of Nasser looked beate + swollen on feet knees + face. I couldn’t see if toenails removed.

In quoting these sad testimonies again and again, Jenny is not placing herself above others and saying, “I am a good person.” Instead, she is saying, “Look at these evils that are hidden inside all of us.”

Sometimes, unexpectedly, Jenny’s paintings call to mind the brooding landscapes of Charles Burchfield. She and Burchfield have rural Ohio childhoods in common. And they share the hard-bitten upstate New York landscape, too. Burchfield spent much of his life hiking the woods nearby his home, but he never sentimentalized what he saw, depicting tree limbs like snakes, stumps like decapitated bodies, flowers like laughing monsters, and leaves writhing in hideous darkness. His paintings perform autopsies on the place he knew best.

Charles Burchfield Night c.1920

In 1915, he wrote in his journal, “I find in myself elements of the most vile sort, and again of the loftiest nature—I cannot understand this—I wonder if I am a farce— Amid all this wonderful season of new life, I despise myself utterly—everything I do or want to do seems a farce. I condemn the ordinary things I say to people—.”

Burchfield believed that an artist must paint “not what he sees in Nature, but what is there.” And to do this, the artist must create symbols, which become even more real than what is right there in front of him or her.

This is what Jenny is doing with her redaction paintings. She is creating symbols of abuse, of the darker side of human nature, and of hope. Sometimes they have the eeriness of the discomforting woods that Burchfield painted. Other times they are coolly abstract, like the handsome canvases the Constructivists created a century ago.

Because I am always wary of handsomeness, I am grateful when I come up close and see the small typed words reporting cruelty and malice. For me, this counterpoint between beauty and evil is closer to the complicated human predicament.

Jenny Holzer Endgame 2010

Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be a system or aesthetics to the government redactions. We read the documents for what is hidden (or redacted) or we read them for what is visible (or unredacted). Sometimes we are asked to infer the unmentionable acts that one citizen commits against another. Other times, the unmentionable acts are stated outright (“they did oppression” and “beated us”).

In the black-and-white aesthetics of redaction, it doesn’t matter if we read the typed words or the redacted spaces—the end result is the same, and to borrow from Shakespeare, it is “of graves, of worms, and epitaphs.”

My favorite canvases remind me of 19th century slate tombstones, and this relates them to Jenny’s early memorial work. In 2005, her first paintings were silk-screen panels. Later, in 2009, she began making wholly hand-painted ones. The recent

Incantation Bowl c. 200-600 AD

paintings are the most labor-intensive, entailing the hand-tracing and the handpainting of each document’s typed words and cursive handwriting. This meticulous, detailed handwork makes the paintings—for me—more about compassion, fear, regret, grief. It also relates them to micrographic and pseudo-script artwork from the past, like the incantation or “curse bowls” that were buried faced down in the earth, usually under homes or in graveyards, to protect against demons, the text acting as a kind of counterspell against an enemy’s curses.

Micrography (from Greek, meaning “small writing”) is a rich tradition in calligraphy, usually called ghubar in the Arabic language, or literally “dust-writing.” There is a charming story concerning one calligrapher active during Tamerlane’s lifetime, who wrote a Koran for Tamerlane so small that the whole book fit inside a signet ring, but Tamerlane was not happy and rejected the calligrapher’s work, so he then wrote a version of the Koran so large it had to be transported to Tamerlane in a wheelbarrow.

These new paintings of Jenny’s are a kind of dust-writing, or to be more exact, a kind of dust-painting. After all, they sometimes verge on darkness or dust, and, for me, they are more interesting to ponder as artworks than real evil, which can be predictable or banal. Standing before Jenny’s dust-paintings, if I squint my eyes and let my imagination run wild, I can hear a call to prayer. I can see a crowded street with men rushing past, stirring up the dust. And I also can see shrouded women behind them sprinkling water—quietly, methodically—to settle it.

Henri Cole Boston (2014)

1 The behavior 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Detail of preceding plate The behavior 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

2 I was arrested 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

3 cold water 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

Detail of preceding plate cold water 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

4 I was called 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

5 or Burnt 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Detail of preceding plate or Burnt 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

6 I my self 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

7 in (JIHAD) time 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

Detail of preceding plate in (JIHAD) time 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

8 We don’t know 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

9 Question Answer 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Detail of preceding plate Question Answer 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

10 some treatment 2014 oil on linen 3 elements 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm each

11 We are not 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

Detail of preceding plate We are not 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

12 X CONCLUSION 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

13 CONCLUSION 2014 oil on linen 102 x 79 in 259.1 x 200.7 cm

Detail of preceding plate CONCLUSION 2014 oil on linen 102 x 79 in 259.1 x 200.7 cm

14 Terrorist Group 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

15 XX 7 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Detail of preceding plate XX 7 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

16 Top Secret 27 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

17 SECRET Page 3 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Detail of preceding plate SECRET Page 3 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

18 Assets and Activities 13 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

19 Blue Grey Secret 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

Detail of preceding plate Blue Grey Secret 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

20 14 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

21 PRESENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Detail of preceding plate PRESENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

22 Doodle 2014 oil on linen 22 x 36 in 55.9 x 91.4 cm

PAINTINGS IN PROGRESS

Painting in progress: or Burnt 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

Painting in progress: I was called 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

Painting in progress: in (JIHAD) time 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

Painting in progress: CONCLUSION 2014 oil on linen 102 x 79 in 259.1 x 200.7 cm

Painting in progress: The behavior 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

SOURCES

Plate 1: The behavior oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 3 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_3.pdf, p. 29 Plate 2: I was arrested oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 1 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_1.pdf, p. 27 Plate 3: cold water oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 1 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_1.pdf, p. 26 Plate 4: I was called oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 1 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_1.pdf, p. 28 Plate 5: or Burnt oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 1 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_1.pdf, p. 29 Plate 6: I my self oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 1 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_1.pdf, p. 80 Plate 7: in (JIHAD) time oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 3 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_3.pdf, p. 23 Plate 8: We don’t know oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 3 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_3.pdf, p. 27 Plate 9: Question Answer oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 3 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_3.pdf, p. 28 Plate 10: some treatment oil on linen 3 elements 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm each U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 3 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_3.pdf, pp. 55–57 Plate 11: We are not oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s “Gardez Report,” section 3 http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_Gardez_Report_3.pdf, p. 24 Plates 12 and 13: X CONCLUSION oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm CONCLUSION oil on linen 102 x 79 in 259.1 x 200.7 cm FBI “Threat Assessment of Pro-Khomeini Shiite Activities in the U.S.,” 1984 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/402499-doc-03.html, p. 51 Plate 14: Terrorist Group oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm FBI Assessment of “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” 2004 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/402515-doc-19-terrorist-threat-to-homeland.html, p. 2 Plate 15: XX 7 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm FBI “Threat Assessment of Pro-Khomeini Shiite Activities in the U.S.,” 1984 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/402499-doc-03.html, p. 27

Plate 16: Top Secret 27 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm CIA report on the exploitation of NGOs by terrorist and extremist groups, 1999 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/368948-1999-04-09-islamic-terrorists-using.html, p. 27 Plate 17: SECRET Page 3 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm CIA report on Bin Laden’s plans to hijack airplanes, 1999 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/368943-1999-01-08-title-excised-claim-that-bin-ladin.html, p. 3 Plate 18: Assets and Activities 13 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm CIA report, “Ariana Afghan Airlines: Assets and Activities,” 1999 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/368953-1999-07-29-ariana-afghan-airlines-assets-and.html, p. 13 Plate 19: Blue Grey Secret oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm CIA report, “Afghanistan as an Incubator for International Terrorism,” 2001 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/369161-2001-03-27-afghanistan-an-incubator-for.html, p. 14 Plate 20: 14 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm CIA report, “Ariana Afghan Airlines: Assets and Activities,” 1999 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/368953-1999-07-29-ariana-afghan-airlines-assets-and.html, p. 14 Plate 21: PRESENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm CIA report on a potential terrorist activity in the United States, 2001 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/368975-2001-05-24-title-excised-a-group-presently-in.html, p. 4 Plate 22: Doodle oil on linen 22 x 36 in 55.9 x 91.4 cm Post-it note from National Security Agency on breaking Google’s encryption https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/NSA%20Powerpoint%20Slide%20-%20Google%20Cloud%20Exploitation.pdf

LIST OF PLATES

1 The behavior 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

5 or Burnt 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

2 I was arrested 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

6 I my self 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

3 cold water 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

7 in (JIHAD) time 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

4 I was called 2013 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

8 We don’t know 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

13 CONCLUSION 2014 oil on linen 102 x 79 259.1 x 200.7 cm

9 Question Answer 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

10 some treatment 2014 oil on linen 3 elements 58 x 44 in each 147.3 x 111.8 cm each

14 Terrorist Group 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

11 We are not 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

15 XX 7 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

12 X CONCLUSION 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

16 Top Secret 27 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

17 SECRET Page 3 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

20 14 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

18 Assets and Activities 13 2013 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

21 PRESENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES 2014 oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm

19 Blue Grey Secret 2014 oil on linen 58 x 44 in 147.3 x 111.8 cm

22 Doodle 2014 oil on linen 22 x 36 in 55.9 x 91.4 cm

COORDINATES Born 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio Lives and works in New York EDUCATION 1977

1972 1970–71 1968–70

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Independent Study Program Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, Master of Fine Arts Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, Bachelor of Fine Arts University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

SELECTED AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS 2014 2011

2010 2009 2006 2005 2004

2003 2002

2000

1996 1994

1990

Asher B. Durand Award, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award, Americans for the Arts, Washington, D.C., and New York American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts Medal of Distinction, Barnard College, New York, New York LA MOCA Award for Distinguished Women in the Arts, Los Angeles, California Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts Urban Visionaries Award, The Cooper Union, New York, New York Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, New School University, New York, New York Public Art Network Award, Americans for the Arts, Washington, D.C., and New York Resident in Visual Arts, American Academy in Rome Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island Kaiserring, City of Goslar, Germany Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, La Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, France Berlin Prize Fellowship, The American Academy in Berlin, Berlin Honorary Doctorate of Arts, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts Crystal Award, World Economic Forum, Geneva Honorary Doctorate of Arts, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio Skowhegan Medal for Installation, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine Leone d’Oro, XLIV Biennale di Venezia, Venice

SELECTED PERMANENT INSTALLATIONS 2014

I STAY (Ngaya ngalawa), 8 Chifley Square, Sydney Du, Talanx AG, Hannover, Germany

2013

Cliff Sappho, Ekeberg Sculpture and Heritage Park, Oslo

2012

For the FDA, FDA White Oak Campus, Silver Spring, Maryland Kind of Blue, Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Fort Worth, Texas

2011 715 Molecules, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts 2009

VEGAS, MGM Mirage City Center, Las Vegas, Nevada

2007

For SAAM, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. For MCASD, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California

2006

For Novartis, Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland For Elizabeth, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York For 7 World Trade, 7 World Trade Center, New York, New York

2005

For Karlstad, Stora Torget, Karlstad, Sweden For Pittsburgh, David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania For Paula Modersohn-Becker, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany

2003

125 YEARS, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Installation for Nantes Courthouse, Palais de Justice de Nantes, Nantes, France

2002

Installation for Telenor, Telenor Headquarters, Fornebu, Norway Wan책s Wall, Wan책s Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden Serpentine: Selections from Truisms, Living, Survival, Arno, Nakanoshima Mitsui Building, Osaka, Japan Installation for Agder College, Agder University College, Gimlemoen, Norway Installation for Neue Nationalgalerie, New National Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2001

Garden Bench, The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy

1999

Blacklist, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California Goerdeler Monument, City of Leipzig, Germany

Installation for the Reichstag, Bundestag, Berlin, Germany Installation for the Sacramento U.S. Courthouse, United States Federal Courthouse, Sacramento, California

1997

Installation for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain Oskar Maria Graf Memorial, Literaturhaus München, Munich, Germany Ceiling Snake, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany

1995

Erlauf Peace Monument, Town of Erlauf, Austria Installation for Schiphol, Schiphol Airport Authority, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

1994

Black Garden, Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn, Germany

1991

Installation for the Foster Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Installation for Aachen, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014

Dust Paintings, Cheim & Read, New York

2013

Light Stream, Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong

2012

THE FUTURE PLEASE, L&M Arts, Los Angeles Sophisticated Devices, Sprüth Magers, London Endgame, Sprüth Magers, Berlin Endgame, Skarstedt Gallery, New York

2011

Jenny Holzer, Kukje Gallery, Seoul Jenny Holzer, Art Stations Foundation, Poznan, Poland. Accompanied by light projections in Poznan

2010

2009

Jenny Holzer: Retro, Skarstedt Gallery, New York TOP SECRET, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris Jenny Holzer, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal ARTIST ROOMS: Jenny Holzer, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh PROTECT PROTECT, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK Jenny Holzer, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland. Accompanied by light projections in Basel, Zurich, and Baselland PROTECT PROTECT, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

2008

PROTECT PROTECT, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Accompanied by light projections in Chicago Like Truth, Diehl + Gallery One, Moscow DETAINED, Sprüth Magers, London PROJECTIONS, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts

2007

Highly Sensitive, Sprüth Magers, Cologne SECRET, Sprüth Magers, Munich Nothing Follows, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris

2006

2004

XX, MAK, Vienna. Accompanied by light projections in Vienna Jenny Holzer: Archive, Cheim & Read, New York Night Feed, Galerie Yvon Lambert, New York

2002

Jenny Holzer, Mönchehaus Museum, Goslar, Germany. Accompanied by light projections in Goslar Protect Me From What I Want: The Multiples and Editioned Works of Jenny Holzer, Printed Matter, Inc., New York Jenny Holzer: Oh, Sprüth Magers, Munich

2001

2000

Jenny Holzer, Cheim & Read, New York Festival d’Automne à Paris, Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, Paris. Accompanied by light projections in Paris Jenny Holzer: Oh, CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.

Accompanied by light projections in Arcachon and Bordeaux Jenny Holzer, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Accompanied by light projections in Berlin Jenny Holzer, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo, Brazil

1999

Jenny Holzer: Proteja–Me do Que Eu Quero, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro. Accompanied by light projections in Rio de Janeiro Jenny Holzer: The Living Series, Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich Jenny Holzer: Blue, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Jenny Holzer, Kukje Gallery, Seoul Hot Pink (with Lady Pink), Sprüth Magers, Munich; traveled to Cologne Jenny Holzer (with poetry by Henri Cole), Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris TRUTH BEFORE POWER, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria. Accompanied by light projections in Vorarlberg

Jenny Holzer, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires. Accompanied by light projections in Buenos Aires

1998 Jenny Holzer: Blue, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris

Jenny Holzer: Blue, Monika Sprüth Galerie, Cologne Blue, Instituto Cultural Itaú, São Paulo, Brazil 1997

Jenny Holzer: LUSTMORD, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston

1996

1995

Jenny Holzer: LUSTMORD, Kunstmuseum des Kantons Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen, Warth, Switzerland Jenny Holzer: From the Laments Series, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts

1994

Jenny Holzer, Art Tower Mito, Contemporary Art Center, Mito, Japan; traveled to Art Gallery Atrium, Fukuoka, Japan Lustmord, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York Jenny Holzer: The Venice Installation, from the Collection of Mort and Marlene Meyerson, Dallas Museum of Art

1993

1992

Bin Ich Hellwach, Haus der Kunst, Munich Street Art: Jenny Holzer, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

1990

XLIV Biennale di Venezia, Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, United States Pavilion, Venice; traveled to Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf; Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark; Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

1989

Jenny Holzer, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Jenny Holzer: Laments 1988–89, Dia Art Foundation, New York Jenny Holzer, Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto

1988

Jenny Holzer: Signs/Under a Rock, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London Jenny Holzer: Signs and Benches, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York Jenny Holzer, Hoffman Borman Gallery, Santa Monica, California

1987

Jenny Holzer: Under a Rock, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Lustmord, Monika Sprüth Galerie, Cologne

Jenny Holzer, Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto

1986

Jenny Holzer: Signs, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; traveled to Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado; Artspace, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, as Options 30: Jenny Holzer; and List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Under a Rock, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York Jenny Holzer, Galerie Crousel-Hussenot, Paris Jenny Holzer, Monika Sprüth Galerie, Cologne

1984

Concentrations 10: Jenny Holzer, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas Jenny Holzer und Barbara Kruger, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland Jenny Holzer: Truisms and Inflammatory Essays, Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, State University of New York College at Old Westbury, New York Jenny Holzer–Lady Pink, Rotterdam Kunststichting, Galerie ’t Venster, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

1983

Jenny Holzer, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York Investigations 3: Jenny Holzer, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

1982

Plaques for Buildings: Thirty Texts from the Living Series, Cast in Bronze by Jenny Holzer and Peter Nadin, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York Jenny Holzer–Peter Nadin: Living, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

1981

Living (with Peter Nadin), Le Nouveau Musée, Villeurbanne, France Eating Friends (with Peter Nadin), Artists Space, New York

1980 Living (with Peter Nadin), Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich

1979 Printed Matter Windows, Printed Matter, New York

Fashion Moda Window, Fashion Moda, New York 1978

Jenny Holzer Installation, Franklin Furnace, New York Jenny Holzer Painted Room: Special Project P.S. 1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources at P.S. 1, New York

SELECTED LIGHT PROJECTIONS 2011

For Krakow, Wawel Royal Castle, Krakow, Poland

2010

For Frankfurt, Alte Nikolaikirche and Römer Römberg; Dreikönigskirche; Literaturhaus; St. Katharinenkirche; Portikus For Richard and Miguel (collaboration with Miguel Gutierrez), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

2009

For Prague, National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic For Siena, sms contemporanea, Siena, Italy

2008

Projection for Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Lyric Opera and 2 N. Riverside Drive; Tribune Tower; Merchandise Mart For the Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, permanent installation

2007 For the Capitol, projected from the Kennedy Center onto the Potomac River and Roosevelt Island

For Toronto, Drake Hotel; Parliament Street Silos; MaRS Building

For the Academy, American Academy in Rome and the Fontana dell-Acqua Paola; Piazza

Tevere; Teatro di Marcello; Castel Sant’Angelo

For Busan, Gwangalli Beach, South Korea, permanent installation

For Milan, Hangar Bicocca; Piazza della Scala; Castello Sforzesco; Stazione Centrale

For San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and Santa Fe Depot; MCASD

La Jolla; Scripps Pier; San Diego Museum of Art

2006 For Naples, Piazza del Plebiscito

For RISD (Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island), 15 Westminster

Street, RISD; Providence City Hall

For Singapore, City Hall

For Vienna, Rathaus; Präsidentschaftskanzlei; Parlament; Staatsoper; Stock-im-Eisen-Platz;

Obere Donaustrasse 97-99; MAK Depot of Contemporary Art (CAT); Österreichische

Nationalbibliothek; Vienna Airport Tower

For London, London City Hall; St. Paul’s Church; Senate House; Barbican Centre;

Somerset House

For Dublin, Dublin Castle; Gate Theatre; Liffey River and Clarence Hotel; Mansion

House; Trinity College and Bank of Ireland; General Post Office

2005 For the City (New York), Rockefeller Center; Bobst Library, New York University;

The New York Public Library

2004

2003

2001

Xenon for Miami, Miami Freedom Tower Xenon for D.C., 1515 14th Street Arts Building; Gelman Library, George Washington University For New York City, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine; Bethesda Fountain; 515 Greenwich Street; Hotel Pennsylvania; The Cooper Union Xenon for Bregenz (Bregenz, Austria), Kunsthaus Bregenz; Feldkirch Schattenburg; Hohenems Steinbruch; Vermunt Stausee; Alte Pfarrkirche zum heiligen Nikolaus, Lech; Kanisfluh; Bregenzer Festspiele Xenon for Torino (Torino, Italy), Teatro Carignano; Piazza Castello Xenon for the Peggy Guggenheim, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice Xenon for Cannes, Palais de Festival and Le Port et le Suquet Xenon for Liverpool, Tate Liverpool Xenon for Paris, Pyramide du Louvre; Colonnade du Louvre; Seine and Pont-Neuf (depuis Le Pont des Arts); Eglise Saint-Eustache; Panthéon Xenon for Monterrey (Monterrey, Mexico), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey; Oficinas e Parque; Biblioteca Magna Raul Rangel Frias; La Huasteca; Loma Larga Xenon for Bordeaux, Dune du Pyla; Porte Caillau; Place du Palais; Place de Parlement; Cinéma Utopia; Place Camille Jullian; Saint Michel; Opéra de Bordeaux; Place de la Victoire; Garonne, quais des Chartones; Cinéma Utopia Xenon for Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie; Matthäikirche, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Kulturforum) and Kammersmusiksaal der Philharmonie; Bundeskanzleramt (Neubau) and Museumshöfe; Berliner Rathaus and Altes Museum; Grand Hyatt Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Pergamonmuseum and Bodemuseum; DG-Bank, DaimlerChrysler Services AG and Jüdisches Museum

2000 Xenon for BALTIC, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK; Castle Keep, Newcastle; Tuxedo Princess, Gateshead

Xenon for Buenos Aires, Planetario de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires Galileo-Galilei and Parque

de Palermo; Centro Cultural Recoleta; Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Buenos

Aires; La Boca and Fundación Proa; Teatro Colón

Xenon for Oslo and Lillehammer, Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo; Oslo Rådhus;

Universitetet i Oslo; Nordster and Lysgaardsbakkene, Lillehammer 1999

Xenon for Venice, Fondazione Cini Xenon for Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Banco de Brasil; Pão de Açucar; Arpoador Beach and Leme Beach

1998

Xenon for Rome, Spanish Steps

1996

Xenon for Florence, Arno riverbank and facing buildings

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Catalogues Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008. Text by Joan Simon, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh.

Jenny Holzer: Redaction Paintings. New York: Cheim & Read Gallery, 2006. Text by Robert Storr.

Jenny Holzer: TRUTH BEFORE POWER. Bregenz, Austria: Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2004. Text by Maurice Berger, Thomas Blanton, Sherman Kent, and Eckhard Schneider.

Jenny Holzer. Bordeaux. CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2001. Text by MarieLaure Bernadac.

Jenny Holzer: Monterrey, 2001. Monterrey, Mexico: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, 2001. Text by Vanesa Fernández and Marco Granados. Introduction by Michael Auping.

Jenny Holzer–Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin. Berlin: The American Academy Berlin and Nationalgalerie Berlin, 2001. Text by Henri Cole and Angela Schneider.

Jenny Holzer, Lustmord. Thurgau, Swtizerland: Kunstmuseum des Kantons Thurgau, 1996. Text by Beatrix Ruf, Yvonne Volkart, Markus Landert, and Noemi Smolik.

Jenny Holzer: The Venice Installation. Buffalo, New York: Albright-Knox Gallery, 1990. Text by Michael Auping.

Jenny Holzer, New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989.

Text by Diane Waldeman. Second edition, New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1997. German edition, Stuttgart: Cantz Verlag, 1997.

Monographs Peter Schjeldahl, Beatrix Ruf, and Joan Simon. Jenny Holzer: Xenon. Küsnacht, Switzerland: Inktree Editions, 2001.

David Joselit, Joan Simon, and Renata Salecl. Jenny Holzer. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1998.

Noemi Smolik, ed. Jenny Holzer: Writing, Schriften. Stuttgart: Cantz Verlag, 1996.

Wilfried Dickhoff and Noemi Smolik. Kunst Heute No. 9: Holzer. Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1993.

Michael Auping. Jenny Holzer. New York: Universe Publishing, 1992.

Artist’s Contributions to Periodicals “After the Towers: Nine Artists Imagine a Memorial” (with Calvin Tomkins). New Yorker, July 15, 2002: 59–67.

“Lustmord.” Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Nov. 19, 1993: 1–31.

Front cover of dust jacket: X CONCLUSION oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm. Back cover of dust jacket: TERRORIST GROUP oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm. Front endpaper: U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s Investigation of Maltreatment of Persons in U.S. Custody. http://www1.umn. edu/humanrts/OathBetrayed/DOD%20053707-54242.pdf, p. 61. Back endpaper: U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s Investigation of Maltreatment of Persons in U.S. Custody. http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/OathBetrayed/DOD%20053707-54242.pdf, p. 60. Opposite title page: PRESENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES oil on linen 80 x 62 in 203.2 x 157.5 cm. Figure illustrations in the essay: Grandma Moses, A Beautiful World. © 1948 (renewed 1976) Grandma Moses Properties Co., New York. Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair, 1852-55, oil on canvas, 96 1/4 x 199 1/2 in. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887 (87.25). Image source: Art Resource, New York. Andy Warhol, 5 Deaths on Orange (Orange Disaster), 1963, silk-screen ink on synthetic polymer paint on linen, 30 1/8 x 30 1/8 in. © 2014 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Charles Burchfield, Night, c. 1920, watercolor on paper, 22 1/4 x 30 1/2 in. Courtesy the Estate of Charles Burchfield, the Burchfield Penney Art Center and DC Moore Gallery, New York. Jenny Holzer, ENDGAME, 2010, oil on linen, 58 x 44 in. Text: U.S. government document. © 2010 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Bowl with incantation for Buktuya and household, Mandean in Mandaic language and script, Southern Mesopotamia, c. 200600 AD. Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum.

Printed in an edition of 2,000 on the occasion of the 2014 exhibition

JENNY HOLZER DUS T PA I N T I NGS Text Henri Cole Design John Cheim Editor Ellen Robinson Photography Jake Forney and Erik Sumption Printed in Italy by Trifolio All artworks © 2014 Jenny Holzer Member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Essay © 2014 Henri Cole ISBN: 978-0-9914681-4-0

Jenny Holzer would like to thank: Martin Aguilera, Kristen Asp, Jason Best, Laura Bialosky, Emily Blanchard, Maria Bueno, Sarah Burke, Rick Caruso, Jessica Chang, John Cheim, Henri Cole, Jun Deng, Walker Downey, Ash Ferlito, Jake Forney, Alanna Gedgaudas, Mike Glier, Lili HolzerGlier, Patrick Hubenthal, Bill Jenkins, Collin LaFleche, Daniel Lechner, Mary Gail Parr, Genevieve Paterson, Howard Read, Ellen Robinson, Adam Sheffer, Ben Snead, Kerin Sulock, Erik Sumption, Kristine Taylor, Kim Treanor, Shawn Upton, Matthew Watson

JENNY HOLZER

D U S T PA I N T I N G S

CHEIM & READ