Jenny Holzer - War Paintings

Published in 2015 by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, this volume documents the series of paintings Jenny Holzer began in 2004. The works were created in direct response to the declassified United States government documents regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including autopsy reports and prisoner interrogation logs. By shifting her focus from her signature public light projections to hand-painted reproductions of these visceral, bureaucratic records, Holzer sought to confront the clinical distance of military documentation with the physical materiality of oil paint.

The book features scholarly contributions by Kristen Asp, who contextualizes Holzer’s departure from text-based conceptualism into a more painterly, expressive medium. The design prioritizes the readability of the stark, censored texts against the painterly abstraction Holzer applied to disguise or highlight specific information. Upon its release, the publication was recognized for its role in preserving the aesthetic and ethical weight of the War Paintings series, serving as a critical archive of Holzer's engagement with the complexities of state violence and human suffering.