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  • NICHOLAS HOLMES: Jenny Holzer's

  • PROTECT PROTECT

  • focuses on works from the last 15 years.

  • For people who have been

  • following her career,

  • this exhibition may seem like

  • somewhat of a departure.

  • Holzer's primary material

  • has always been language.

  • She's put text on LED,

  • or light-emitting diode displays,

  • t-shirts, hats,

  • light projections on buildings

  • and other unconventional places.

  • Now her LED displays have morphed

  • into more elaborate sculptures,

  • and she's been making paintings.

  • The overall visual effect

  • of the exhibition PROTECT PROTECT

  • is seductive.

  • The gallery walls are awash

  • in colored light,

  • and text moves hypnotically

  • across the sculptural surfaces.

  • The work draws you in, and in doing so,

  • brings you closer to the work's

  • often disturbing content.

  • Since 2004, Holzer has drawn her text

  • from declassified

  • government documents.

  • The earliest of the documents relate

  • to the Reagan administration's support

  • of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s.

  • The latest take us through

  • the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  • She obtained these

  • through the National Security Archive

  • and the American Civil Liberties Union.

  • Both of these groups use

  • the 1966 Freedom of Information Act

  • to bring government documents

  • into the public record.

  • Holzer made a strategic decision

  • to make documents into paintings,

  • reproducing them, unaltered,

  • in oil paint on linen.

  • She'd noticed that people

  • give paintings more time, attention,

  • and value than other art forms.

  • She wanted people to look

  • at these documents in the same way.

  • Like most of her document paintings,

  • "Request for Approval Green, White"

  • is a bit hard to read.

  • Holzer has enlarged the original,

  • letter-sized page, which was already

  • a poor quality print

  • after having been photocopied, scanned,

  • or faxed a number of times.

  • She's reproduced a memo containing

  • a kind of interrogator's wish list.

  • It asks permission

  • to conduct twenty-hour interrogations,

  • to subject prisoners

  • to enforced grooming,

  • specifically shaving their beards,

  • and to deprive them of things

  • that give them comfort,

  • like religious objects.

  • Holzer accessed the documents through

  • the American Civil Liberties Union,

  • or ACLU,

  • and the National Security Archive.

  • Kate Doyle is a senior analyst

  • at the National Security Archive.

  • DOYLE: The National Security Archive,

  • despite its somewhat sinister name,

  • is not a government agency.

  • It is not the National Security Agency.

  • It is not the National Archives.

  • It is actually a nonprofit,

  • nongovernmental organization

  • that was founded in the 1980s

  • by journalists and analysts,

  • investigators to, first and foremost,

  • promote and defend

  • the public's right to know.

  • HOLMES: Working with

  • the National Security Archive

  • and the ACLU, Holzer looked at

  • about 40,000 documents

  • including autopsy reports, policy memos,

  • statements by American soldiers

  • and other products of the bureaucracy

  • supporting the war.

  • This painting, "Jaw Broken,"

  • reproduces a statement

  • by an Iraqi detainee who has had

  • his jaw broken during an interrogation,

  • and ends with his declaration

  • of forgiveness of his abuser.

  • The content of the documents

  • Holzer has used varies widely,

  • but most of them

  • have one thing in common:

  • they've been edited or redacted

  • by government censors, blackened out

  • so that the content is illegible.

  • Again, Kate Doyle.

  • DOYLE: Although the Freedom

  • of Information Act provides people

  • with a legal tool to request information

  • from their own government,

  • there are exceptions to the kind

  • of information that the government

  • will or can provide.

  • Those exceptions, or exemptions,

  • are specified in the law,

  • and they might be for reasons of,

  • for example, national security.

  • B1, the National Security exemption

  • in the Freedom of Information Law,

  • is one of the key exemptions

  • that are used in denying us information

  • that we request to government agencies.

  • And those black marks will cover

  • anything from the most sensitive

  • intelligence information such as

  • the names of sources of intelligence,

  • or the methods that are used

  • by the government to gather intelligence,

  • whether it be wiretapping or spying.

  • HOLMES: Holzer has also

  • used government documents

  • in LED sculptures, and in some cases,

  • these too are redacted.

  • The text in the sculpture "Purple"

  • comes from accounts

  • of criminal proceedings against members

  • of the armed forces.

  • She's reproduced the redacted areas

  • with X's.

  • Often, the history

  • of a document's declassification

  • is visible on its surface.

  • The painting

  • "The White House 2002 Pink, White"

  • reproduces a memo George W. Bush

  • sent to his administration

  • detailing his position

  • on the Geneva Convention regarding

  • the treatment of prisoners of war.

  • In the lower left corner,

  • we can see that the document

  • was partially declassified in June 2004,

  • and not fully declassified

  • until October 2004.

  • DOYLE: When you are talking

  • about policies that walk the line

  • between what's legal and what's not,

  • immediately, even in the moment

  • of the creation of those policies,

  • comes the cover-up, comes the attempt

  • by the administration to protect itself.

  • And what you're seeing

  • when you see documents with text

  • that has been released

  • over a long period of time

  • is you're seeing the "push me, pull you"

  • of public demand.

  • When we first request

  • a document from the government,

  • we might get back a highly classified,

  • highly censored text.

  • We then have the right

  • to appeal that decision,

  • and that will usually produce

  • a less censored text.

  • We will have more information.

  • And if we really care about this issue,

  • and most of these issues

  • that we're talking about-- torture

  • and detention policy

  • and the War on Terror-- we cared about

  • and care about tremendously,

  • we will go to court over it.

  • HOLMES: In some cases,

  • the government

  • will declassify documents

  • that have been completely redacted.

  • DOYLE: The law actually stipulates

  • that they have to provide the document.

  • So even if the document

  • is entirely blacked out,

  • we will receive that document.

  • And the tiny scratchings

  • at the bottoms and tops of those pages

  • sometimes tell us things

  • about the document that are hard

  • for other people to see.

  • For example, it will tell us

  • what exemption they used

  • to hide that information.

  • And that gives us a clue

  • that this information was about

  • a national security issue,

  • or a privacy issue,

  • or it was about law enforcement,

  • depending on what exemption they cite.

  • Each president,

  • when he comes into office,

  • issues an executive order

  • on classification and secrecy.

  • And each president interprets

  • his administration's position on secrecy

  • in a different way.

  • There are very real, concrete efforts

  • to investigate, possibly for prosecution,

  • some of the officials

  • of the Bush administration for policies

  • that were clearly illegal at the time

  • they were carried out.

  • So in that sense, this exhibition

  • couldn't have a better timing

  • because these are precisely

  • the questions that members

  • of Congress, human rights lawyers,

  • both in this country

  • and in countries around the world,

  • are asking themselves.

  • HOLMES: Power dynamics

  • and sexual violence

  • have been important subjects

  • in Holzer's work for many years.

  • In 1994, Holzer produced

  • a series of works called "Lustmord,"

  • a German word that translates loosely

  • as "rape murder."

  • The works respond to the genocidal war

  • in the former Yugoslavia.

  • Early in that conflict,

  • it became evident that Serbian soldiers

  • were raping Bosnian women

  • in a deliberate, systematic fashion,

  • using rape as a weapon of war.

  • For "Lustmord," Holzer wrote text

  • from the perspectives of the victims,

  • the perpetrators

  • and, because these crimes

  • were often committed very publicly,

  • the observers.

  • In this version,

  • the texts have been engraved

  • on metal bands

  • encircling human bones,

  • which Holzer purchased

  • from natural history stores.

  • In earlier presentations of "Lustmord,"

  • the texts were written on people's bodies.

  • Laurel Fletcher is Professor of Law,

  • and Director of the International

  • Human Rights Law Clinic,

  • University of California Berkeley.

  • FLETCHER: In virtually

  • every conflict in the world

  • involving displacement of civilians,

  • you will see incidences

  • of rape of women.

  • The degree and the extent

  • and the patterns will vary,

  • but I think that the war in Yugoslavia

  • and the way rape was used there,

  • specifically as part of an effort

  • to terrorize and induce a population

  • to move, was something new.

  • HOLMES: The War in the Balkans

  • began in 1991.

  • At that time,

  • under President Slobodan Milosevic,

  • the Serbians seceded from Croatia,

  • hoping to form Greater Serbia,

  • an ethnically pure nation.

  • FLETCHER: And it was that desire

  • to have ethnically pure territory

  • that meant that you had to drive out

  • the inhabitants who had been living

  • in those areas,

  • in some cases for centuries.

  • So it was part of,

  • "How do you get civilian populations

  • who have lived in rural communities

  • for hundreds of years to leave

  • those communities and uproot?"

  • That is where the use of rape

  • as a tool of terror came into play.

  • HOLMES: A pattern reigned

  • from 1992 to 1993, as Serb forces

  • gained control in Bosnia.

  • Soldiers would lob artillery

  • into a Bosnian village;

  • its inhabitants would begin to flee.

  • Paramilitaries, or militias,

  • often run by criminal gangs,

  • would then arrive.

  • FLETCHER: But in general,

  • men and women were separated.

  • Then, women might be rounded up

  • and taken to separate detention facilities

  • where they would be raped.

  • They would be pulled out

  • of those detention facilities

  • at night by soldiers and raped.

  • Sometimes, as they were

  • rounding up villagers,

  • they would go door-to-door

  • and conduct house searches.

  • And in the context

  • of those house searches,

  • women would be raped.

  • So they might be raped

  • in front of their family members,

  • they might be raped

  • in front of their children,

  • or certainly within earshot.

  • The shame and humiliation

  • that accompanied this practice

  • needs to be understood

  • in the cultural milieu

  • of that rural population,

  • where purity and chastity

  • were prized among women.

  • So if a woman was raped and defiled,

  • that brought shame not only on herself,

  • but shame on her family.

  • And for that reason, then,

  • women would want to flee

  • and never return to their homes.

  • Sometimes women

  • would become pregnant,

  • and they would be told,

  • both in the course of the rape

  • and afterwards, that now you're going

  • to bear a Serbian child.

  • Others, if they were lucky,

  • were able to then escape or be released

  • because they had been impregnated

  • by a Serb,

  • in a sense sending the woman

  • and her full womb as a testament

  • to the conquest of her body

  • by Serbian forces.

  • And so as she returned

  • to her community, then that would send

  • a message in a ripple effect.

  • HOLMES: We asked Professor Fletcher

  • to respond to Holzer's "Lustmord"

  • from her perspective as an expert

  • in human rights violations.

  • FLETCHER: I think that one of

  • the challenges to all of us

  • is not to turn a blind eye,

  • or to shutter our hearts,

  • to the pain and suffering of victims,

  • which can become overwhelming

  • if you pay attention to the stories.

  • And sometimes it takes focusing in

  • on the fine details that may not be

  • the precise descriptions

  • of physical acts.

  • But it's as though...

  • you can't look directly

  • at a star to see its reflection,

  • you look to the side

  • and it will come into focus more clearly.

  • I think that the exhibit

  • serves the same function.

  • It allows us a pathway

  • that is perhaps easier to journey down,

  • but is an invitation to honor

  • the suffering and experience of victims.

  • HOLMES: PROTECT PROTECT

  • is on view at the Whitney Museum

  • until May 31, 2009.

  • This is Nicholas Holmes

  • of the Whitney Museum.

  • . �

NICHOLAS HOLMES: Jenny Holzer's

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