Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Battle Rhythm" is a painting by Jenny Holzer from 2024. Vertically oriented, the linen canvas is about 6 1/2 feet tall and 5 feet wide. From afar, it glimmers and glows in gold and copper tones.

At first glance, the composition appears to be a graphic of 10 bright gold shapes placed in a circular format, sitting equidistant from one another like numbers on a clockface. Upon closer inspection, each of the 10 shapes is a circle about 10 inches in diameter sitting behind a slightly rectangular shape about 8 inches square; each rectangular form is gilded in a gold lighter and brighter than the canvas’s coppery background. The circle behind each rectangle is gilded in bright silver-colored leaf, only its edges visible.

Two clearly visible words sit above the center of the clock-like circle. They read “Battle Rhythm” in dark serif letters about 1 inch tall. In the center of the clock-like circle sits a rectangle about 4 inches tall by 1 1/2 feet wide. Delicate graphic arrows sit between each of the ten smaller circles, pointing clockwise, designating a process, movement, or rotation. Each arrow is about 2 inches long and about an inch wide, thinly outlined in vibrant red-orange paint.

The painting’s reflective surface is captivating as the light catches it. Closer looking reveals the deeply tactile process of making this work. Bright tones of oil paint beneath the gilding are visible at the rectangles’ edges where the metal leaf transitions and in places where the leafing wrinkled or tore slightly. The underpainting of each section creates areas that shine warmer or cooler as the light reflects on them. The squares are bright gold leaf gilded over a greenish-black paint. The circles surrounding them are silver-toned leaf over dark blue. The linen canvas surrounding the shapes glows bright coppery gold with a brilliant orange underpainting. The surface reflects these different hues at various angles.

A few other obscured words in the same serif typeface appear across the painting but are more difficult to discern as they are gilded over, thus blending into the background. They become more visible as their varied texture catches the light at certain angles. At top center, above “Battle Rhythm,” all-capitalized letters read, “SECRET//X-1,” with a horizontal line through their center. Beneath the heading, at top left, text reads, “20. Appendix A,” followed by the center-aligned “Battle Rhythm."  

At bottom center, text reads, “Page 2 of,” also crossed out horizontally. The page number, text, and graphics appear proportional to a US letter-sized document blown up to a much larger scale.

"Battle Rhythm" replicates an appendix from standard operating procedures for detention and interrogation operations at Guantanamo Bay circa 2003/04. It outlines a code of conduct for humane treatment of detainees, military personnel roles, and guidelines for reporting information obtained through interrogation for the Joint Interrogation Group of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo. This page features a redacted “battle rhythm” chart illustrating daily operations flow for the detention center. It was released June 2006 via a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

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