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Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

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Digital Archive Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology
Art Jenny Holzer, MEMORANDUM FOR CONDOLEEZZA RICE GREEN
MEMORANDUM FOR CONDOLEEZZA RICE GREEN, by Jenny Holzer, 2006

Jenny Holzer, Artist
MEMORANDUM FOR CONDOLEEZZA RICE GREEN , 2006

Medium
Oil on linen
Dimensions
3 panels, 33 x 76 1/2 in. (83.8 x 194.3 cm) overall
Credit Line
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse. Museum purchase with funds from the Director's Discretionary Fund and Robert Fagenson (2007.13.1–3). Photography by Brian Forrest, ©Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS)

In the current era of terror, Jenny Holzer has turned her attention to the erasure of language and information in declassified government documents. Part of her series of thirty-two Redaction Paintings, this work reproduces and magnifies a typed memo from Richard A. Clarke of the National Security Council to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice seeking clarification on terrorist threats. Holzer's Redaction Paintings—which include depositions from both witnesses and soldiers during military actions, George W. Bush's opinion on the authority of the Geneva Conventions in a period of international terror, and even autopsy reports—index the same unsettling mix of violence, ignorance, and truth that has always intrigued the artist and remains at the center of her work.