Art: Whitney Museum: Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT

Jenny Holzer's new exhibit at the Whitney Museum titled PROTECT PROTECT is a powerfully political group of works, that combine electronic LED signs with redaction paintings and 'lustmord'-- a bare wooden table covered with various human bones tagged by metal bands that are inscribed with phrases detailing the rape and murder of women during the 1992-95 war in the former Yugoslavia. War and Words are thus the two pillars on which Holzer's current work stands tall. Iraq takes center stage, starring the CIA and the Bush administration's bloody hands. Verbiage and words are the vehicles on which Holzer's art transport us: phrases are appropriated from pop-culture, government agencies, and news reels disseminated on 8 colorful, Time Square-like LED signs that silently and emotionlessly pound phrases of personal reflections with universal implication.

Holzer's probing themes are not new to art history. Her scathing critic of authority, state brutality, and infamous butchery have been recycled and re-painted since the time of Caravaggio. Holzer's art does not console-- it is not a plea for redemption or purification, it merely states, projects blatantly, silently and persistently. Man's inhumanity to man, an age-old theme.

Two works stand out in PROTECT PROTECT: "Purple" and "HAND." Both from 2008 are displayed opposite to each other and are to be appreciated together. "HAND" represents 36 oil on linen black and white images of (surprise) hands--both left and right-- redacted in varying degrees and accompanied by texts appropriated from U.S government documents. These hands, we learn, are not of victims, but are from U.S soldiers accused of war crimes. Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse comes to mind. The hands are positioned according to the varying degrees of redaction-- all I.D's, and finger-prints have been 'blacked-out', erased-- some fully, some partially-- as if saying that some secrets--some crimes, perhaps-- are larger than others. "Purple" on the other side of the room is an arching, curving 33 panelled LED with flashing phrases, also appropriated from U.S government documents. "Purple" denotes and displays the accusations made against U.S soldiers, the work literally highlights the crimes committed by the facing "HANDS".

Although we float through the rooms, and immerse ourselves in the penetrating environments of the flashing LED's we are impotent observers on state atrocity, but as voters aware that we have given the authority for cold blooded murder. All you can do is look and shame becomes a tactile component brought to the exhibit by the audience to dance along with Holzer's work. Death in the form of documented autopsies, and torture testaments; statements that have been redacted and declassified, but leaves enough of a hint at the callous cruelty.

It is ruthlessly honest --an incredibly modern work of art and if we are to have a chance at redemption for our own conscience, it must begin with acknowledgment.