Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: This painting by Jenny Holzer from 2024 is titled "The distant future." The oil-on-canvas work is about 2 feet high and 1 1/2 feet wide, and almost entirely covered in silver-colored leaf.

Sitting centrally in the composition is an oversize keyhole shape about 8 inches tall and 2 inches wide, covered in gold leaf. Four lines of text, center-aligned and in a serif typeface, run over the composition and keyhole. Surrounded by quotation marks, the phrase reads, 

“The distant future is 
visible to the naked eye  
through the keyhole of 
history”

The text is textured in silver-colored leaf mottled red-orange, as if the text was silver-leafed and then delicately scratched through to reveal the warm paint tone beneath. On close inspection, the keyhole shape is thinly outlined with an unsteady red line. Where the words intersect with the gold keyhole shape, they bring the silver color with them. In these intersections, it looks as if the silver spills in sections on top of the keyhole’s golden surface, or that pieces of the golden keyhole have perhaps melted away to reveal spots of silver underneath. 

Light bounces off the metallic surface of the canvas in various directions as one approaches and moves around it. The keyhole’s gold, metallic body is sometimes difficult to discern against the harmonious reflections of the surrounding silver-colored leaf. Depending on where one stands, the shining reflections dim and the gold keyhole becomes more easily distinguishable, contrasting with the silver. A vibrant red-orange tone appears to lay beneath the metallic leaf in a layer of underpainting, making the gold sections glow warmer. In the silver-leafed sections, a subtle grid is formed around the application of the two-by-two-inch squared sheets of metal leaf. Closer looking reveals thin tears in the delicate thin sheets; cool cobalt blue peeking through. 

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 Her work draws from art-historical references for painterly techniques and visual themes, including Alexander Rodchenko’s experiments with color, light, and form.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.” 

"The distant future" is from a 1999 Defense Intelligence Agency publication titled "A Primer on the Future Threat: The Decades Ahead: 1999–2020." This report aims to “provide a thought provoking document that highlights for decision makers and long range planners those threats and challenges that may emerge in the period 1999–2020 and beyond.” It assesses global trends and uncertainties likely to face the US in the 21st century, with a focus on transnational security concerns and military defense technology.

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