Jenny Holzer
Denied
November 8, 2024 — January 31, 2025
1 Tools Required, 2024
caplain, palladium and platinum leaf and oil on linen
147.3 x 111.8 x 3.8 cm
2 Denied, 2024 platinum leaf and oil on linen
61 x 46.2 x 3.8 cm
3 Page 405, 2019
24k gold and palladium leaf and oil on linen
147.3 x 111.8 x 3.8 cm
4 Attribution is a Bear, 2019
caplain and palladium leaf and oil on linen
147.3 x 111.8 x 3.8 cm
5 FBI, 2023
24k gold and red gold leaf and oil on linen
61 x 46.2 x 3.8 cm
6 CRYPTOLOG Fall, 2024 moon gold and red gold leaf and oil on linen
61 x 46.2 x 3.8 cm
7 Uniting Strengthening, 2024
24k gold and red gold leaf and oil on linen
61 x 46.2 x 3.8 cm
8 -57-, 2024 red gold and platinum leaf and oil on linen
61 x 46.2 x 3.8 cm
9 HEREIN, 2022
24k gold and red gold leaf and oil on linen
203.2 x 157.5 x 3.8 cm
n. 1, 5, 7, 8, 9
2002–2005 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents pertaining to the USA PATRIOT Act, drafted before portions of the law were set to expire in 2005. The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001 as a response to the September 11 attacks; its intent was to deter and punish terrorism by expanding law enforcement surveillance abilities, improving interagency counterterrorism communications, and increasing penalties for terrorist crimes, among other provisions. These pages are from an entirely redacted report tracking the use of Patriot Act provisions.
n. 2
Page from an October 2019 US Department of State document pertaining to Ukraine and the 2019 impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. The contents of the document are almost entirely denied for release or redacted except for brief reference to Hunter Biden and his role on the board of Burisma Holdings Limited, a holding company based in Kyiv, Ukraine, for a group of energy exploration and production companies. The relationship between Biden and Burisma has been the subject of political investigation since Trump and associates made claims of corrupt activities in 2019 and pressured the Ukrainian government to provide incriminating information in an effort to weaken Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election campaign. Other documents from these Department of State case records include correspondence about Marie Yovanovitch, US Ambassador to Ukraine from 2016 to 19 who was ousted by Trump and the target of a smear campaign when her anti-corruption efforts were seen as an obstacle to Trump’s goals. Released 2020 via the Department of State Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) virtual reading room.
n. 3
This document, FISA Verified Application, April 2017, is a renewal of the October 2016 Warrant, which grants an order and warrant regarding Carter Page’s conspiring with the Russian government to influence the 2016 US Presidential election.
n. 4
Page from the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Russian Active Measures. The heavily redacted March 2018 report concludes the committee’s investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 US presidential election, finding that Russia conducted cyber attacks on US political institutions in 2015–16, Russian state actors were responsible for the dissemination of documents and communications stolen from US political organizations, and Russian intelligence used social media in an attempt to sow social discord and undermine the US electoral process. This page is from a chapter on cyber activity and other active measures directed against the US and its allies.
n. 6
Page from the Fall 1995 issue of Cryptolog: The Journal of Technical Health, a classified publication produced by the National Security Agency to facilitate the exchange of information between members of the cryptanalytic community. The issue responds to the impact of technological advancement on the field of cryptanalytics and its implications for translation, linguistics, and software programming. The articles within speak to the fallibility of language and the slippage between interpretation and information. This page comes from a partially redacted article titled “SIGINT and the Information Explosion.” SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) is the analysis of electronic signals such as communications systems, radars, and weapon systems. The article discusses the complexity of cryptanalytics after the Cold War, an era of intelligence transformed by information warfare. Declassified and approved for release by the NSA in October 2012, and publicly available via the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
1 DORMO, curved Versilys Gold marble bench, 43.2 x 106 x 45.7 cm
2 Fuzzy, 2016, RGB diodes, stainless steel housing, 12.4 x 129.5 x 5.2 cm, ed. 6
JENNY HOLZER
Denied
curated by Philip Larratt-Smith
Jenny Holzer (b. 1950, Ohio, USA) is one of the most influential artists of her generation. Since the late 1970s, her work has explored the interaction between language and power. Her best-known installations consist of texts placed in urban spaces using various media — LED displays, hand-painted signs, bronze plaques, posters, stone benches, and light projections. Such works can awaken viewers’ consciousness and catalyze critical thinking, puncturing the media landscape to which we have become so accustomed that we can fail to recognize reality
The texts she uses, often presented in unadorned sans-serif letters, mainly consist of brief statements relating to everyday life, human hopes and fears, and, more insistently in recent years, violence and war
In works created after September 11, 2001, Holzer began to take a more explicit interest in the new history of the United States, the war on terror, secret investigations, interrogations, and the loss of human lives in failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of late, she has expanded her scope to include investigations into foreign interference in US elections and the 2021 attack on the US Capitol. In her Redaction Paintings, she reproduces documents that have been released under the Freedom of Information Act, the law that guarantees public access to the US government’s records
Often classified and not intended for public view, many of these documents have been redacted by the authorities before being published. Holzer enlarges the documents’ pages in oil on linen, frequently with the addition of metallic leaf. The result sheds light on the ambiguous relationships between power and secrecy and invites curiosity about the meaning and weight .of words that, in their original context, are easily lost in the flow of information On display at Studio Trisorio are eleven works painted between 2019 and 2024. In these works, the redactions appear as black bars or transform into precious rectangles of gold leaf, resembling abstract paintings. In a related drawing on vellum titled Privately Constructed, the tracing of a document from the US Department of Homeland Security is surrounded by handprints made with charcoal
In addition to these works, small metal plaques and drawings from Holzer’s Living and Survival series of the 1980s will be present, featuring pithy, incisive phrases that invite viewers to reflect on themes such as the fragility of life and the violence of war
In the showcase at via Carlo Poerio 116, an LED sign and a marble bench inscribed with a line from a poem by Patrizia Cavalli will be exhibited
Biography
For more than forty years, Jenny Holzer has presented her astringent ideas, arguments, and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions, including Times Square, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her medium, whether a T-shirt, plaque, or electronic sign, is writing, and the public dimension is integral to her work. Starting in the 1970s with her New York City street posters and continuing through her recent light projections on landscape and architecture, her practice has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor, kindness, and courage. Holzer received the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award in 1996, the rank of officier in France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, the US State Department’s International Medal of Arts in 2017, and Time magazine’s Time 100 Award in 2024. She holds honorary degrees from Williams College, the Rhode Island School of Design, the New School, and Smith College. She lives and works in New York