Jenny Holzer
Shifting to Softer Targets (detail)
2014 – 2015
Oil on linen, 203.2 x 157.5 x 3.8 cm / 80 x 62 x 1
1/2 in
© 2015 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Jenny Holzer: Softer Targets. Hauser & Wirth Somerset Hauser & Wirth Somerset presents ‘Softer Targets’, a major solo exhibition by Jenny Holzer, featuring both new work and a selection of significant pieces drawn from over three decades of the artist’s career. 12 July – 1 November 2015.]]>
Source: Hauser & Wirth Somerset
The title of the exhibition refers to a ‘redaction painting’ from a classified 2004 Federal Bureau of Investigation report, ‘The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland: An FBI Assessment’. Relatively few pages of the 45-page report were declassified, with its text heavily redacted, before release to the public. Faithfully rendered, but enlarged and realised in a palette of whites, greys, transparent red and black, the painting received its title from the single surviving line on page 26: ‘Shifting to Softer Targets’.
All five gallery spaces are devoted to the exhibition, creating a succession of environments; some sun-lit or illuminated by the kinetic programming of LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and sombrely keyed to set the mood of the works that Holzer presents. The pieces range from the ‘Truisms’ that first established her reputation in the 1980s to her thoughtful ongoing examination of the ‘war on terror’.
A selection of paintings and LED installations, benches and other works in stone, plaques in bronze, and the artist’s preparatory carbon lettering on tracing paper provide the visitor with a sense of the diverse media that the artist has employed over the course of her career. Also present are the extraordinary variety of voices and individual perspectives she has utilised to show, at times, the darker side of the world.
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Lee Lozano: Drawings & Paintings at Hauser & Wirth New York (exhibition, 2015)
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