KUB 2004.03
Jenny Holzer
12 | 06 – 05 | 09 | 2004
The politics of US foreign policy in the Middle East is the subject of TRUTH BEFORE POWER, Jenny Holzer’s Kunsthaus Bregenz project. The complicated dialectic of decision-making and public debate, as it has unfolded through the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush,William Jefferson Clinton, and George W. Bush, is explored in text devoted to such issues as the international trade in arms and oil, the “war” on terrorism, 9/11, the FBI and CIA, and Congress’s oversight of the intelligence community.
For the most part, the installation’s text has been taken verbatim from US government documents. Many were “classified” at the time they were written. Under the landmark Freedom of Information Act passed in 1966, all are now public record, though some remain heavily redacted.
On the museum’s second floor, where electronic signs are programmed in red and amber, Holzer seeks to convey the welter of voices involved in government decision-making. Amber signs, on the third floor, are devoted to the theoretical literature of the American intelligence community, and this community’s relationship with the executive and legislative branches of government. A more lyrical note is provided by American poet Henri Cole, whose recent work To the Forty-third President appears in English and German on the first floor blue sign array; and again on the Museum’s ground floor, translated into German and inscribed on a diagonally displayed log.
For Holzer’s companion installation at the Johanniterkirche Feldkirch, the poem is branded in English, spiraling down a bare vertical tree trunk.
For more than 25 years, Jenny Holzer’s work has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor, kindness and, moral courage. Her astringent ideas, arguments, and sorrows have appeared in public places and international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennial, the Reichstag, and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. Whether the medium is a t-shirt, plaque, LED sign, or xenon projected on a prominent façade, the public dimension is an integral aspect of her work. Holzer lives in Hoosick, NY.
Henri Cole is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Middle Earth which received the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award earlier this year. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Bennington College, and has been described by critic Harold Bloom as a “central poet of his generation.” Cole lives in Boston, MA.
TRUTH BEFORE POWER, the title of the exhibition, is taken from a 1968 essay, Estimates and Influence, by Sherman Kent, one of the CIA’s founders and leading thinkers. “I suppose that if we in intelligence were one day given three wishes”, Kent mused, “they would be to know everything, to be believed when we spoke, and in such a way to exercise an influence to the good in the matter of policy.”
Johanniterkirche Feldkirch 14 I 06 I 04 - 05 I 09 I 2004
As a companion piece to her installation in the lobby of the Kunsthaus, Holzer will place a monumental, text-branded tree in the nave of the Johanniterkirche Feldkirch. Referencing Trajan’s Column, the text – presented in English in the church and in German in the Kunsthaus lobby – will spiral the length of the trees. In the Johanniterkirche, the tree column will be centered beneath Florus Scheel’s ceiling fresco in the crossing of the nave and the side chapels. The tree, placed in the midst of excavated graves, will be positioned on the church’s uneven earthen floor.
Holzer’s installation in the Johanniterkirche is the most recent project in the collaboration, established in 2001, between the church and Kunsthaus Bregenz.
Xenon-Projektionen by Jenny Holzer in Vorarlberg
On eight successive evenings, beginning at 10 p.m. on June 11, 2004, three-hour programs of xenon light projections will be held at outdoor sites in Bregenz and five further locations in Vorarlberg.
Since 1996, Holzer has thrown scrolling texts of monumental scale onto architecture and landscape using high powered projectors fitted with xenon lamps that run 185 mm film. “Seen and absorbed rather than read,” much like advertising and public announcements, in the view of critic Peter Schjeldahl, Holzer’s xenon venues have included the Spanish Steps in Rome, the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in Berlin, and the undeveloped landscape surrounding Rio de Janeiro. For her Bregenz project, Holzer has chosen the glass façade of the Kunsthaus for the inaugural evening of the show. Among other selected venues on succeeding nights are Schattenburg Castle in Feldkirch, the dam of the Vermunt Reservoir, and the Kanisfluh Palisades. Text is taken from government documents and Henri Cole’s poem fromthe exhibition as well as from the artist’s writing. At some sites, including Vermunt Reservoir, a special largeformat film will be shown.
The projections can be seen from 10:00 pm till 1:00 am on the dates and at the venues specified:
SATURDAY, 12 June
Bregenz, Kunsthaus Bregenz, facade facing the lake
10 pm
Vantage point: Park at the lake, Harbour
Speakers: Eckhard Schneider (Director KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
SUNDAY, 13 JunE
Feldkirch, Schattenburg castle
10 pm
Vantage point: Neustadt
Speakers: Mag. Albert Ruetz (Department for Culture Feldkirch), Eckhard Schneider (Director KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
In Cooperation with Stadt Feldkirch and Feldkirch Festival
MONDAY, 14 JunE
Hohenems (Hohenems /Dornbirn), Rhomberg rock quarry
10 pm
Vantage point: Site at the access road to the rock quary
Speakers: Dir. Norbert Häfele (Kulturkreis Hohenems), Eckhard Schneider (Director KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
In Cooperation with Kulturkreis Hohenems and Rhomberg-Bau
TUESDAY, 15 JunE
Silvretta-Hochalpenstraße, Montafon, Vermunt reservoir, dam
10 pm
Vantage point: Madow near the Silvretta-Hochalpenstraße
Speakers: Dr. Ludwig Summer (Director Vorarlberger Illwerke AG), Mag. art. Roland Haas (Art Director Kunstforum Montafon), Eckhard Schneider (Director KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
In Cooperation with Vorarlberger Illwerke and Kunstforum Montafon
WEDNESDAY, 16 June
Lech, Church
10 pm
Vantage point: Center of Lech (Rüfiplatz)
Speakers: Ludwig Muxel (Mayor of Lech), Eckhard Schneider (Director KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
In Cooperation with the municipality of Lech
THURSDAY, 17 June
Bregenzerwald (Schnepfau/Hirschau), Kanisfluh palisades
10 pm
Vantage point: Between Hirschau and Schnepfau
Speakers: Elmar Schuster (Mayor of Schnepfau), Josef Moosbrugger (Chairman Regio Bregenzerwald), Eckhard Schneider (Director KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
In Cooperation with Regio Bregenzerwald and municiplaity of Schnepfau
FrIDAY, 18 June
Bregenz, floating stage »West Side Story« of the Bregenzer Festspiele
10 pm
Vantage point: Grand stand
Speakers: David Pountney (Intendant Bregenzer Festspiele), Eckhard Schneider (Direktor KUB), Dr. Rudolf Sagmeister (Curator KUB)
In Cooperation with the Bregenzer Festspiele