March 12–May 31, 2009

Using language as her medium, Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) has created a
critically important body of work over the past three decades. Her texts
have appeared in nontraditional media such as posters and electronic
signs, billboards and T-shirts, and most recently as dematerialized,
luminous projections on surfaces as different as crashing ocean waves
and the Louvre’s large glass pyramid. Perhaps surprising for those who
have followed the work of this artist for many years, her chosen texts
recently have been rendered in oil paintings and in dazzling, large-scale
electronic sculptures. While the political content of Holzer’s latest work
fits in the tradition of Goya, the ethereal color and architectural scale
draw inspiration from Matisse, Malevich, Rothko, and LeWitt.
The works in this exhibition feature selections of Holzer’s writings
from 1977 to 2001, as well as declassified pages from U.S. government
documents she has used as source material since 2004. The exhibition’s
subtitle PROTECT PROTECT derives from texts detailing plans for the
Iraq war, yet it also relates to the problematic power of personal desire,
as encapsulated in one of Holzer’s best-known statements: PROTECT ME
FROM WHAT I WANT.
Whether she is using her own idiomatic texts, borrowing the words
of international poets, or citing formerly classified materials containing
policy debates, battle plans, and testimonies of American soldiers and
detainees in U.S. custody, Holzer works between the public and private,
the body politic and the body, the universal and the particular. Always
timely, she provides a range of opinions, attitudes, and voices in works
infused with formal beauty, sensitivity, and power.

REDACTION PAINTINGS

For these paintings, Holzer worked with materials from the National
Security Archive, a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization that
collects declassified government documents and makes them available
to the public, and from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
which makes formerly classified information available to the public
on its website. Subject matter deemed too sensitive for the public
eye was blacked out, or redacted, by government censors during the
declassification process. Under the landmark Freedom of Information Act
passed in 1966, all are now public record, though some remain heavily
redacted. When Holzer reproduces these materials, she includes them
whole and verbatim. The various styles of marking and redacting give
evidence to the number of individuals involved in both the execution of the
war and the management of its information, lending a human presence
to the blank face of bureaucracy. The paintings’ source materials include
autopsy reports of detainees in the Middle East, correspondence and
documents related to detainee interrogation, redacted handprints of
U.S. military personnel accused of crimes, and maps from a PowerPoint
presentation given by the U.S. military’s Central Command to the White
House that delineate and propose various strategies and plans for the
invasion of Iraq.

ELECTRONIC SIGNS

Holzer began writing early in her career; her most well-known texts are the
Truisms (1977–79) and Inflammatory Essays (1979–82). She uses various
media to disseminate her writings, particularly LED (light-emitting diode)
signs, which are commonly used for advertising and to report the news in
the public realm. The LED signs in this exhibition draw from declassified
government documents as well as the thirteen texts written by Holzer
from 1977 to 2001. Documents have been re-keyed for the LED works and
only changed as necessary for the medium. For example, redactions are
represented 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 or
make the viewer uncomfortable. Holzer’s light sculptures have both an
intimacy and grandeur, and create almost force fields around and within
the spaces they define, transforming the contemporary gallery’s “white
cube” into an immersive environment.
Red Yellow Looming (2004), Thorax (2008), and Purple (2008)
are programmed with declassified documents. Red Yellow Looming
touches on policy-making and public debate as it unfolded through the
presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. The
documents deal with such issues as the international trade in arms and
oil, the “war” on terrorism, 9/11, and the FBI and CIA, but all concern
events prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Thorax presents an array
of documents concerning one case in which an Iraqi non-combatant
was killed by American forces. The documents contain many conflicting
accounts of the same incident from different perspectives. Purple
includes autopsy reports of detainees that died while in
American custody, documents detailing various events and conditions at
Guantánamo Bay, a series of policy documents regarding the treatment
of enemy combatants, as well as the same case file included in Thorax.

LUSTMORD

Loosely translated, the German word lustmord means rape-slaying,

sex-murder, or lust-killing. It is the title of one of Holzer’s texts as well
as a work on view in the exhibition. Prompted by the atrocities of war in
the former Yugoslavia (1992–95) where the rape and murder of women
and girls was a systematic tactic used by Bosnian-Serb forces, the
Lustmord texts were originally written on human bodies, which were
photographed for presentation. Since then, it has been shown in site-
specific installations using a range of materials.
The Whitney’s installation consists of human bones, both male
and female specimens, laid out like artifacts on a found wooden table.
Some of them feature silver bands engraved with fragments of text that
detail the rape and murder of women from the perspectives of victim,
perpetrator, and witness. The circular texts cannot be read all at once,
a metaphor for the variety of viewpoints expressed.

Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT is co-organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,
and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland.

Major support for Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT is provided by Donald and Brigitte Bren, Anne and
Burt Kaplan, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional support is generously provided by Andrea and Jim Gordon, Penny Pritzker and Bryan Traubert,
Sara Szold, Gretchen and Jay Jordan, the Kovler Family Foundation, Cari and Michael Sacks, Howard
and Donna Stone, Kathy and Steven Taslitz, Helen and Sam Zell, Lannan Foundation, the Graham
Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Cheim & Read, Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers,
Yvon Lambert, Barbara Ruben, Irving Stenn, Jr., Lynn and Allen Turner, and The Orbit Fund.

Major support for the Whitney’s presentation is provided by the National Committee of the Whitney Museum
of American Art in honor of Linda Pace, Jack and Susan Rudin in honor of Beth Rudin DeWoody, and
The Broad Art Foundation.

Significant support is provided by Elizabeth A. Sackler—JCF, Museum Educational Trust.

Sponsored by

Redaction
Paintings
Monument
Green Purple Cross &
Blue Cross
REDACTION PAINTINGS
Redaction Paintings 2005–09
Oil on linen; a selection
Text: U.S. government documents
33 x 25 1/2 in. (83.8 x 64.8 cm) or 58 x
44 in. (147.3 x 111.8 cm), each
Collection of the artist; courtesy
Cheim & Read, New York; and
Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston
PROTECT PROTECT deep
purple 2007
Oil on linen
Text: U.S. government document
79 x 102 1/4 in. (200.7 x 259.7 cm)
Collection of Howard and Donna Stone
HAND 2008
Oil on linen; thirty-six elements
Text: U.S. government documents
58 x 44 in. (147.3 x 111.8 cm), each
Collection of the artist; courtesy
Cheim & Read, New York; Monika
Sprüth Philomene Magers, Berlin and
London; and Yvon Lambert, Paris
In museum lobby, above
Sarabeth’s:
MAP 2008
Oil on linen; a selection
Text: U.S. government documents
79 x 102 1/4 in. (200.7 x 259.7 cm), each
Collection of the artist; courtesy
Cheim & Read, New York; Monika
Sprüth Philomene Magers, Berlin and
London; and Yvon Lambert, Paris
Redaction
Paintings
Lustmord Table
For Chicago
PROTECT PROTECT
deep purple
stairs
Elevator
ELECTRONIC SIGNS
Red Yellow Looming 2004
Thirteen double-sided electronic LED
signs with red diodes on front and
amber diodes on back
Text: U.S. government documents
128 1/4 x 109 x 145 3/4 in. (325.8 x
276.9 x 370.2 cm)
Collection of Cari and Michael J. Sacks
Blue Cross 2008
Seven double-sided electronic LED
signs with blue diodes on front and blue
and red diodes on back
Text: Arno, 1996
72 3/4 x 109 x 89 1/2 in. (184.8 x 276.9
x 227.3 cm)
David Roberts Art Foundation, London
Green Purple Cross 2008
Five double-sided electronic LED signs:
three with blue and green diodes on
front and blue and red diodes on back;
two with blue and red diodes on front
and blue and green diodes on back
Texts: Erlauf, 1995; Arno, 1996; and
Blue, 1998
50 1/4 x 122 5/8 x 96 1/4 in. (127.6 x
311.5 x 244.5 cm)
Collection of the artist; courtesy
Yvon Lambert, Paris
Thorax 2008
Twelve double-sided, curved electronic
LED signs with white diodes on front
and red and blue diodes on back
Text: U.S. government documents
101 1/2 x 37 1/8 x 37 1/8 in. (257.8 x
94.3 x 94.3 cm)
The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica
Fire EXIT
Thorax
Red Yellow Looming
HAND
Purple
Elevator
LUSTMORD
For Chicago 2008 Lustmord Table 1994
Ten electronic LED signs with amber Human bones, engraved silver, and
diodes wood table
Texts: Truisms, 1977–79; Inflammatory Text: Lustmord, 1993–95
Essays, 1979–82; Living, 1980–82;
29 1/4 x 70 x 44 3/4 in. (74.3 x 177.8
Survival, 1983–85; Under a Rock, 1986;
x 113.7 cm)
Laments, 1989; Mother and Child, 1990;
War, 1992; Lustmord, 1993–95; Erlauf,
Collection of the artist; courtesy
1995; Arno, 1996; Blue, 1998; and
Cheim & Read, New York
Oh, 2001
2 3/8 x 313 x 642 1/2 in. (6 x 795 x
1631.9 cm)
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Collection Museum of Contemporary
Art, Chicago; commissioned through Holzer conducted her research of
the generosity of the Edlis/Neeson Art declassified documents using the
Acquisition Fund online resources of the National
Security Archive and the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU). Source material
for works shown in this exhibition, in
MONUMENT 2008
addition to other documents, can be
Twenty double-sided, semi-circular found through the links below:
electronic LED signs: eleven with red
and white diodes on front and back; nine www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/
NSAEBB214/index.htm
with red and blue diodes on front and
blue and white diodes on back www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/
Texts: Truisms, 1977–79, and torturefoia.html
Inflammatory Essays, 1979–82
190 1/2 x 57 3/4 x 28 7/8 in. (483.8 x
146.7 x 73.3 cm)
Jenny Holzer was born in
Collection of the artist; courtesy Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1950. She attended
Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Duke University and the University of
Berlin and London; and Diehl + Gallery Chicago, and received a BA from Ohio
One, Moscow University. She received an MFA from
the Rhode Island School of Design in
1977. In 1976–77, Holzer participated in
the Whitney Museum of American Art’s
Purple 2008
Independent Study Program. She lives
Thirty-three double-sided, curved and works in Hoosick, New York.
electronic LED signs: twelve with red
and blue diodes on front and blue and
white diodes on back; twenty-one with
red and blue diodes on front and green
and white diodes on back
Text: U.S. government documents
37 1/8 x 397 3/8 x 37 1/8 in. (94.3 x
1009.3 x 94.3 cm)
Collection of the artist; courtesy
Yvon Lambert, Paris