image of document with six blacked-out rectangles; typed sentence below center remains: "Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia, is in my opinion, one of the few politically clear pictures of the complex situation during that first year of the war."; notes and text written and top and left side; from a portfolio of five images

%C2%A9 Jenny Holzer %2F Brand X Editions%2C New York %2F Artists Rights Society %28ARS%29%2C New York

AKA 1, 2006

Not on Viewexpand_more

Jenny Holzer's print portfolio "AKA" is based on a selection of heavily redacted pages drawn from the FBI's investigative files on British author and satirist Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name, George Orwell (1903–1950). Though Orwell was not a target of an FBI investigation, his various published works were seen as potential threats to the American government by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who suspected Orwell of being a communist and maintained files on him well after the author's death. Orwell's works were notably anti-communist and anti-fascist, reflecting his own political beliefs which embraced the ideals of personal freedom and collective responsibility. His renowned novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) explore the dehumanizing effects of social and political oppression under totalitarian regimes. Holzer's portfolio exposes the irony of government scrutiny of Orwell's activities and the subsequent censorship of records concerning Orwell and his famous novels.

Details
Title
AKA 1
Artist Life
born 1950
Role
Artist
Accession Number
2011.36.1
Provenance
(Neptune Fine Art, New York); sold to MIA, 2011
Curator Approved

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image of document with six blacked-out rectangles; typed sentence below center remains: "Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia, is in my opinion, one of the few politically clear pictures of the complex situation during that first year of the war."; notes and text written and top and left side; from a portfolio of five images

© Jenny Holzer / Brand X Editions, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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