Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Thanks," is a painting by Jenny Holzer from 2023. Nearly 5 feet tall by 4 feet wide, the vertically oriented linen canvas is covered in various gleaming hues of gold leaf. Stacked from top to bottom, four rectangles of gold leaf in varying sizes are aligned along the left side of the painting, a few inches from the edge. They are set against a bright copper-toned background with an allover grid-like pattern, made from sheets of leaf that are each about 3 inches square.

The surface immediately surrounding the rectangles is a coppery tone. The upper rectangle is the largest, stretching to the right and covering the upper half of the canvas, gilded in bright gold. Just below it, aligned with its left edge, sits a smaller rectangle in silver-pink gilded leaf. Just below that, a long horizontal rectangle stretches across the painting in a warm pinkish gold.

Left-aligned beneath these three rectangles, near the base of the painting, printed text in serif font about an inch tall reads, “Thanks,” followed by a comma. It is painted a deep ultramarine blue. Directly beneath it, the fourth and final rectangle—small and almost square in proportion—is gilded gold.

Depending on the viewing angle and reflected light, the coloring at times appears quite different. In the lower-right corner, silver text thinly outlined in blue reads, “FBI,” followed by a series of letters and numbers, “(21-cv-572)-4962,” identifying what appears to be a US letter-proportioned document which has been blown up to a large scale.

The reflective surface is captivating, with each gilded section subtly differing in tone, from bright antique gold and 24-karat gold, to rosy-champagne gold, moon gold, and coppery-red gold.  

Closer inspection reveals the deeply tactile process of making this work. Bright tones of oil paint beneath the gilding are visible at the rectangles’ edges and where the metal leafing wrinkled or tore slightly. The underpainting of each section creates areas that shine warmer or cooler as the light reflects on them. The upper gold rectangle is gilded over dark blue paint. The square below it is underpainted a light sky blue. The middle rectangle is a coppery gold over vibrant ultramarine. The lowest square, directly beneath “Thanks,” is gold leaf over vibrant teal. The linen canvas surrounding all the rectangles glows bright with a brilliant red-orange underpainting. Each section seems partly sanded to reveal more or less of these colors as the light reveals the gilding and colors from various angles.

"Thanks," replicates a page from a heavily redacted email sent December 12, 2020, included in a batch of Federal Bureau of Investigation records pertaining to violence at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and related events. The records comprise communications from the weeks preceding and following the breach of the Capitol Building by supporters of President Donald Trump. The records were released in October ‘22 via the FBI’s online Freedom of Information Act repository.  

This piece is part of a body of Holzer’s work consisting of declassified government documents, transferred by hand to linen. Her work draws from art-historical references for painterly techniques and visual themes, including Alexander Rodchenko’s experiments with color, light, and form. The content of the documents—often obscured by heavy redactions—ranges from post-9/11 US military records to contemporary reports on the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons by the US government. The deeply tactile painting process overlays the bureaucratic anonymity of the documents and amplifies methods of censorship and concealment, rematerializing redacted events. Holzer has said of her work in the medium: “I wanted to show time and care. I wanted it to be an indicator of sincerity and attention. I wanted the works to be human.”

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