SHHH! It's A Secret!

Many artists use observations to depict the world around them.  One artist in particular that does so is Jill Magid.  She used institutions and authority in order to make her art.  She worked wit the Dutch Secret Services in order to create conceptual artwork.  Magid has a particular interest in secrets; not the exposure of them but their existence.  Therefore, her project with the secret services was one that really fascinated her.  She enjoyed working with them and using them as a way to create her artwork.  She had the opportunity to work with members of the secret service and understand the organization from the inside. 

After creating her project, Magid got people to wonder who was the watcher and who was an observer.  Was everyone a spy?  The agents really appreciated her work and kept scheduling to meet with her despite the fact that the secret services did not like parts of her work.  They felt it revealed too much information about their organization and made her black out parts of her book.  The book could only be seen through glass as well.

Magid’s work depicts this idea of awareness of the population and what this means.  She utilizes what is out there and turns it around to benefit her and her work.  I thought her piece called “I Can Burn Your Face” was really intriguing.  I liked that she did it in neon so that it stands out and “burns” your eyes when looking at it.  It goes along with the title of the piece and the idea she is trying to portray through this piece of art. 

I also thought the idea of exposing these agents so much that they feel vulnerable but not enough to quite figure them out was really fascinating.  I would never have thought that this is what she would have done with the information she gathered through her meetings.  Not only was it something interesting to look at, the idea behind it is really cool and I liked that we got to walk through the process with her.  Seeing her thought process and her ideas through her own perspective really brings the artwork to life.


-Kristen