Jill Magid is the guest of the fourth episode of the podcast series I did with artists who 1. are among my absolute cultural heroes and 2. have exhibited at Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art in Ljubljana.
Jill Magid is an artist, writer and filmmaker whose practice blurs the boundaries between art and life. Over the years, Magid has initiated intimate relations with systems of power that most of us tend to see as impersonal and intimidating, such as intelligence agencies, corporations, bureaucracies and law-enforcement agencies.
During the conversation, we talked about her adventures with the Dutch secret service, with the New York City Police Department, CCTV operators in Liverpool and the art historian who hid Luis Barragán’s professional archives in a Swiss bunker. But we also discussed surveillance, censorship, the privatisation of culture and more.
I hope you enjoy the episode!
Jill Magid, The Proposal, 2016
Jill Magid, Evidence Locker, 2004
Jill Magid, Authority To Remove. Installation view of Authority to Remove at Tate Modern, London, 2009
Bonus: In 2021, I interviewed Magid about The Proposal. The work focuses on the Mexican architect Luis Barragàn. All his professional archives -including the rights to his name and work and all photographs taken of it- were bought by the chairman of Vitra as an engagement gift for his fiancée, the architectural historian Federica Zanco. Since then, no one else has had access to the archives. In a bid to open the archives to the public, Magid made a rather astonishing proposal to the Swiss couple: open up Barragàn’s professional archive to the public in exchange for a ring with a diamond made from some of Barragàn’s ashes.
Previous podcast episodes: Tactics&Practice [podcast]: The Future Behind Us. Episode 1, Trevor Paglen, Episode 2, Nora Al-Badri, Episode 3, UBERMORGEN.
Tactics&Practice [podcast]: The Future Behind Us was produced for PXXP•XXV: Speculation and Decay, the programme curated by Aksioma for the 25th edition of Pixxelpoint – International Festival of Contemporary Art Practices which will take place in Nova Gorica/Gorica on 7 to 17 November 2024.