Auto Portrait Pending. Ring Setting. 2005
Auto Portait Pending. Installation view at Independent Art Fair, New York at RaebervonStenglin. 2013
Auto Portait Pending. Installation view at Independent Art Fair, New York at RaebervonStenglin. 2005
Auto Portrait Pending. The contracts. 2005
Auto Portrait Pending. 2005
Auto Portrait Pending. Wall vitrine. 2005

Auto Portrait Pending

In 2005, Jill Magid signed a contract with a company to become a diamond when she dies. The contract specifies the agreement for her transformation and the details of her eventual diamond. Upon her death, the diamond will be created from the carbon of her cremated remains. It will have a round cut, weigh one carat, and be set in a gold ring. Until the diamond′s creation, the empty ring setting, the corporate contract, the artist’s preamble, and the Beneficiary Contract constitute the artwork.

Make me a diamond when I die. Cut me round and brilliant, weigh me at one carat, ensure that I am real.

-Except from Magid's Preamble to Lifegem