Jill Magid: A Reasonable Man in A Box September 12, 2010

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."