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Covert Operations: Investigating the Known UnknownsPost an Event »
Read Our Review »San Jose Museum of Art
June 30 - January 10, 2016Info
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http://www.sjmusart.org/
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(408) 271-6840
Jenny Holzer. Ribs, 2010; LED signs with blue, red, and white diodes, text from US government documents.
As we pass the second anniversary of shocking revelations about widespread, international data collection, security and privacy have become everyday concerns. Covert Operations is the first survey of work by artists who are responding to the uncertainties of the post-9/11 world. They employ the tools of democracy to bear witness to attacks on liberty and to the abuse of power: they reveal previously unreported information and government actions that may limit civil rights.
These artists probe subjects that range from classified military sites and reconnaissance satellites to border surveillance; from terrorist profiling to narcotics and human trafficking; from illegal extradition flights to nuclear weapons. Jenny Holzer examines the complicity and the individual actions behind human rights violations. Harun Farocki and Taryn Simon pry into the hidden institutional structures and economy of the United States’s intelligence community, or the “black world.” David Taylor photographs the US/Mexico border to raise complex issues of immigration, border security, human and drug smuggling, and environmental impact. Trevor Paglen reveals covert worlds: CIA agents’ passports, patches worn by US military personnel who conduct “black” ops, and military satellites and drones stationed high above the earth. Hasan Elahi responds to his wrongful placement on the terrorist watch list by voluntarily documenting his every movement. The exhibition also includes works by Ahmed Basiony, Thomas Demand, Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0, David Gurman, Anne-Marie Schleiner and Luis Hernandez Galvan, and Kerry Tribe.