Art Basel Paris + Solo Presentation with Labor Gallery

For her solo presentation at Art Basel Paris +, Magid investigates overlapping interests of beauty, science, and commerce, and the role that prediction and visualization play in the circulation of value. Magid exhibits a series of new neon sculptures alongside scientifically rendered botanical drawings and a sculpturally hand-cut book of Redouté illustrations. The entrance to the booth is framed by an installation of Market Flowers, fresh-cut from open-air markets near the center of Paris, diverted from circulation and recontextualized as art. 

Jill Magid’s neon sculptures depict the mathematical formula of a growth model called the Richards Function, specially devised to maximize the stem length of certain types of flowers, including the rose, peony, chrysanthemum, pointsettia and easter lily. In the business of flowers, stem length corresponds to potential value for growers and sellers, with an increase in flower height leading to an increase in monetary value. Magid exhibits her mathematical proofs vertically, as neon flowers that stand at the same height that the formula would ideally generate.

Accompanying each neon sculpture is a scientifically rendered botanical illustration drawn by Silvia Saucedo Heredia - Canela, merging the organic form of the flower with the mechanical, incorporating the growth equation as an essential component of the neon template. 

In Barbados Lily, Magid takes as her starting point a book of botanical illustrations by the world-renowned French botanical illustrator to the aristocracy, Pierre-Joseph Redouté. From the chapter Selection of the Most Beautiful Flowers (drawings produced from 1827-1833), Magid meticulously hand-cuts away the classical illustration page by page into bouquets as an iconoclastic gesture. Magid considers the roles of these instructional illustrations within the flower market and domestic space, as well as their enhancement of value throughout the botanical industry.