Becoming Tarden, 2009
Becoming Tarden
In 2005, I 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 I met with 18 agents who volunteered to be interviewed, but remained anonymous even to me. The project resulted in a variety of forms, among them a novel called Becoming Tarden—Tarden being a character in Jerzy Kosinski's book Cockpit, an agent (a "hummingbird") whose real identity is kept from other agents and is often disguised as a cultural official, a business man, an artist or writer.Forty percent of the manuscript was censored by the AIVD in 2008. After legal negotiations with the organization, I agreed to let it seize the uncensored body of the book after being exposed—under glass and out of reach—from my exhibition 'Authority to Remove' at the Tate Modern in London, 2010. I retained for myself only the Prologue and the Epilogue.
Installation at Tate Modern, 2009/10: The Museum as Dead Letter Box.
The body of the book, torn from its spine and waiting to be confiscated.
The book under glass, displayed as outlined by the Director of the Dutch Secret Service:
"as a visual work of art in a one-time-only exhibition, after which time it would become the property of the Dutch government,
stripped of all sensative information and never to be published."
The book along with my letter to the AIVD, and the Tate's 'Authority to Remove from Site' Form
The confiscation of the body of the book by the AIVD on January 4, 2010
Becoming Tarden, the paperback edition. Printed 2010. Includes the redactions made by the Dutch Secret Service.