Jill Magid – Authority to Remove

Jill Magid I Can Burn Your Face 2008 © Jill Magid, Courtesy of the artist and Yvon Lambert, New York/Paris

Tate Modern Gallery, London - Through January 3, 2010
Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York

By Raúl Martínez

Jill Magid’s work Directives, featured in her solo show “Authority to Remove” at the Tate Modern Gallery in London contains the following lines;

LISTEN IN AND FORWARD BLINDLY. ENCRYPT ME SEVEN TIMES. CALL ME A SECRET SO YOU’LL CONTINUE TO WANT ME. TALK TO ME FOR AN HOUR, THEN LEAVE, NOT KNOWING WHO I AM.

Jotted down during a series of interviews the artist had with 18 AIVD (Dutch secret service) agents, they are examples of the, at times commanding, often paranoid, yet seductively poetic, language used by spies [to refer to their jobs].

Conceived as the final act of a turbulent love story, the exhibition [at the Tate] exposes details of the artist’s engagement with the AIVD, spanning from the initial flirtation to the undergoing of divorce. A sealed book filled with intimate memoirs of the three-year-long romance, a dour letter addressed to the AIVD Director and a threatening red neon with the words “I CAN BURN YOUR FACE” make the stage, leaving no doubt that the affair is now over. Concurrently, an exhibition at Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York displays further memorabilia of the relationship, revealing that the Tate Modern Gallery also contains a trap for her furtive lover.

Following the 9/11 and Madrid terrorist attacks, the AIVD doubled in size and thus moved to a larger building in The Hague. Under the Dutch “percent for art” legislation, part of the new development budget had to be used to commission new onsite artwork. Seduced by the Magid’s curriculum vitae, which included artworks based on her relationships with a New York City cop, the Amsterdam Police and employees at the Liverpool CCTV center, the AIVD selected her for the job. They asked her to produce an artwork that would reflect the face of the Organization, and rather naively, make up for some recent leaks of confidential information that had undermined its reputation.

Unlike previous works, where Magid used different pranks and hats to infiltrate government organizations, this time being an artist allowed her access to the cloistered AIVD. To fulfill her task, she was granted permission to meet with 18 different spies under the condition she would neither register their conversations nor reveal their identities. For a period of over two years, she interviewed them at bars, hotel lobbies, airports, filling several notebooks with intimate details about their lives.

These encounters terminated abruptly when she submitted, to the Organization, the initial draft of a novel based on her experiences, which she intended to publish. Several weeks later, she got it back heavily redacted, with all passages deemed confidential removed. A subsequent letter, signed by the AIVD Director, emphasized the claim by attaching the articles of the Dutch penal code that regulate the misuse of classified information and the disclosure of State secrets - criminal offenses, which may involve up to 15 years in prison. Alternatively, it was suggested that the manuscript be exhibited “as a visual work of art, in a one-time only exhibition; after, it would become property of the Dutch government.”

The book “Becoming Tarden,” provocatively exhibited inside a glass cabinet at the center of the Tate’s lower-level gallery, is Magid’s response. As if placed on a sacrificial altar, it lays dismembered, its body separated from the spine. An adjacent handwritten letter from the artist to the AIVD reads “I had dreams of publishing it as my first novel. You are its only reader. Seize it. Strip it. Hold it in your building and seal it under glass. I comply.” Attached to it, the artist provides all the necessary documents to remove an artwork from a British museum, should the Organization decide to do so. She does not mention, however, that the surveillance camera, in the corner of the room, is broadcasting live onto a screen at Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York.

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