ARTIST CV

PRESS RELEASE

For its eighth season, Mister Fahrenheit is very pleased to present Pooler Room, a solo exhibition by Jill Magid. Bringing together installation, text, painting, and performance, Magid uses Mister Fahrenheit as her stage to trace power structures, intimately probing relations between individuals and the federal institutions designed to protect them.

Pooler Room unfolds across a space that once housed a subterranean swimming pool belonging to former resident and Vietnam War Marine veteran, Robert (“Bobby”) Muller (b. 1946). After sustaining a spinal injury during the War that left him paralyzed from the chest down, Muller became an outspoken peace activist and advocate of veterans’ rights.

The artist overlays another site where water, recovery, and state power intersect: the White House. In 1933, an indoor therapy pool was built in the West Wing for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took up swimming following his diagnosis with polio. Later, this pool was forced underground when the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room was constructed above it.

Magid’s exhibition at Mister Fahrenheit is structured across two levels.

Upstairs, a carpet is modeled after the platform in the White House press briefing room. The exhibition’s title refers to the press pool, a rotating group of journalists tasked with witnessing and relaying the actions and statements of the president on behalf of the broader press corps. A stenographer’s note from a pool report is presented on the wall, while a continuous C-SPAN broadcast fills the space.

Downstairs, the former swimming pool is held in outline. A Program for Pooler Room rests on a stand, its text written in the format of an official White House program and rendered by one of its former calligraphers. Throughout the exhibition, this work will be performed at intervals by vocalist Charmaine Lee, whose voice is altered by the presence of water in her mouth. Layered with audio from an interview with Bobby Muller, these performances focus on moments when the sound of the interviewer’s pen competes with Muller’s voice.

At the other end of the space, just above the tile line, is a painted fragment of the mural that once surrounded the White House swimming pool. The image remains partial, withholding a complete view.

Born in Bridgeport, CT in 1973, Magid currently lives and works in New York. Solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have been presented at institutions worldwide including Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Berkeley Museum of Art, California; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City; and Dia, Bridgehampton, New York. Current and recent group shows include Body Fragment, The Power Station, Dallas (through June 13, 2026); For What It’s Worth: Value Systems in Art since 1960, The Warehouse, Dallas (2024); NFT: Poétiques de l'immatériel, du certificat à la blockchain, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2023); Extended Present – Transient Realities, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (2022); Worlds of Networks, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2022). Magid’s work can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others. The artist was the recipient of the 2017 Calder Prize, a 2020 Creative Time Artist Commission, and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. A forthcoming exhibition of Magid’s work, titled Notice of a Citizen, will open at Olney Gleason, New York on June 11, 2026.

POOLER ROOM PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Instrumental performances by Stuart Bogie will take place at 1:00pm, 2:00pm, and 3:00pm on the following dates:

Wednesday, April 29

Wednesday, May 13

Wednesday, May 27

Wednesday, June 10

For details of performances by Charmaine Lee, please contact info@misterfahrenheitny.com.