Jenny Holzer: Truth Before Power

Jenny Holzer: Truth Before Power by Glotz, Peter. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9783883758466.

The politics of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is the subject of Truth Before Power, Jenny Holzers recent 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 texts devoted to such issues as the international trade in arms and oil, the war on terrorism, 9/11, the FBI and CIA, and Congresss oversight of the intelligence community. For the most part, the installations text has been taken verbatim from U.S. government documents--many of which 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. This illustrated catalogue includes selections from declassified U.S. government documents, Henri Coles poem To the Forty-third President, and highlights from Holzers own writing. Color photographs document Holzers installations at the Kunsthaus and the Johanniterkirche in Feldkirch, and the eight xenon light projections staged in Vorarlberg.