Becoming Tarden

Selected praise for Becoming Tarden:
"The fairytale of the artist and the secret service just had to end badly". —The Wall Street Journal.
An Artist Delves Into the Lives of Spies, The Wall Street Journal, Sept 19 2009
Jill Magid Manuscript Confiscated Following Tate Modern Exhibit, The Wall Street Journal, Jan 8 2010

In 2005, Jill Magid was commissioned by the Dutch secret service (AIVD) to create a work that would "reveal the human face" of the organization. During the next three years she met with 18 agents who volunteered to be interviewed, but remained anonymous even to her. The project resulted in a variety of forms, among them her non-fiction novel, Becoming Tarden. Forty percent of the manuscript was censored by the AIVD in 2008. After legal negotiations with the organization, Magid agreed to let it seize the uncensored body of the book after being exposed—under glass and out of reach—from her solo exhibition 'Authority to Remove' at the Tate Modern in London, 2009-10. The redacted paperback edition of Becoming Tarden was published later that year and first shown at The New Museum in the exhibition "Free".