Jill Magid: A Reasonable Man in a Box

July 1–Sept 12, 2010

A scorpion's tale showing on an artwork by Jill Magic.
A scorpion's tale showing on an artwork by Jill Magic.

Jill Magid (b. 1973), Still from A Reasonable Man in a Box, 2010. Courtesy the artist and Yvon Lambert, Paris and New York

In her first solo exhibition in an American museum, Jill Magid (b. 1973) continues to explore means of penetrating closed systems of power. Taking institutional structures, rules, laws, and language as her media, Magid has developed a conceptually rigorous, largely performance-based practice in which she seeks to engage institutions of power on a personal, intimate level. Developed for the Whitney Museum’s first-floor Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Gallery, Magid’s A Reasonable Man in a Box takes its point of departure from the “Bybee Memo,” a controversial 2002 document signed by Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, and declassified by President Obama in 2009. The document discusses acceptable methods of "enhanced interrogation" of a high-level Al Qaeda operative, including the use of a confinement box. As Whitney curatorial assistant Nicole Cosgrove writes in the introductory text, “A Reasonable Man in a Box explores the perversion of reason, and the malleability of language and law. Using video, collage, and text, Magid transforms an international and political issue into a physical and intensely personal experience. The installation represents an artist’s desire to engage a legal memo—and her government—in dialogue, and to unlock a closed system of legal language with a single rhetorical question."

Jill Magid: A Reasonable Man in a Box is organized by Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator Chrissie Iles.



In the News

"If you needed any extra evidence that the Bush Administration lost all sense of decency in its pursuit of information believed to be hidden in the minds of terrorist suspects, then go see Jill Magid’s chilling installation"
 -The Brooklyn Rail


On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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