The 100 Best Artworks of the 21st Century

When Jill Magid was denied access to the professional archives of Mexican architect Luis Barragán—which were bought by the Swiss furniture company Vitra—she turned the problem into an opportunity, steering the genre of institutional critique away from museums and toward corporations. First, she contrived clever ways to get around copyright restrictions. Instead of paying a licensing fee to reproduce a photograph, for instance, she bought a book that had already printed it, then framed the whole book. Forbidden from re-creating his iconic pyramidal lectern, she skirted copyright law by adjusting the scale—that is, until a French show under new jurisdiction required she throw a blanket on top. Despite these persistent public pleas, archival access remained restricted. Then, Magid managed permission for something even wilder: with the consent of Barragán’s family, she exhumed his ashes and turned them into a diamond, which she then used to propose to the archive’s keeper. The offer of her proposal still stands. —E.W.

Jill Magid's multi-faceted project, The Barragán Archives, has been named one of the 100 most influential artworks of the 21st Century by the editors of ARTnews and Art in America.