Paperwork to Works of Paper

In the deceptively slightest gesture, Weist exhibits a unique copy of her private investigator license. Printed on a near-match for the original paper and cut with a similar perforating rotary blade, the object dares you to mistake it for the original—down to the void pantograph hiding in plain sight. Its title, excerpting the law, informs that if this license is had, held, or displayed by any person other than the issuee, both parties would be guilty of a misdemeanor. While no language specifies a penalty for having, holding, or displaying its reproduction, it bears stating: caveat emptor. A piece of paper imbued with so much power that only one person is allowed to possess and show it: one could as easily be describing a private investigator license as a singular work of art.

All persons to whom license certificates have been issued shall not lend or allow any other person to have, hold or display such certificate; and any person so parting with a license certificate or displaying the same without authority shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. (But they didn’t say anything about a copy.), 2024
6 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (framed)
8 x 5 inches (license)
ink on paper

A paradox for a licensed private investigator is the need to shred data before it leaves the office, and at the same time, keep a paper trail of professional activity in case of an audit by the state. Three works of handmade paper test the limits of this logic, created from shredded and pulped records of people with traffic citations, those sharing Weist’s astrological sign, and (in a nod to PI cliché) her spouse. Operating beyond anticipated use cases for the law, they turn paper debris into optical fields teeming with data.

People with Traffic Citations in My Town: Guilty & Dismissed (Wildcard Search for Self), 2024
43 3/8 x 33 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (framed)
30 x 40 inches (paper)
handmade paper

My Spouse: IRB, TLOxp, idiCORE, 2024
37 1/4 x 24 7/8 x 1 1/2 inches (framed)
20 x 30 inches (paper)
handmade paper

Aries in My Town: Past & Dead (Wildcard Search for Self), 2024
43 3/8 x 33 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (framed)
30 x 40 inches (paper)
handmade paper

Other works also double as self-portraits, or better put, portraits of the artist as multihyphenate. Her collage of custom letterheads—with fanciful agency names like “Palette Intelligence” and “Unique Prints”—is unlawful for Weist the private investigator to display, as it includes more than “the name under which the licensee is duly licensed”; however, when Weist the artist hangs it in a gallery, where it can read as a satire of an over-professionalized creative, does the legal risk remain?

When Weist the professor designs a union membership card for the Bard College chapter of the AAUP, is she violating numerous rules, dating back to the 1893 Anti-Pinkerton Act, that keep private investigators at a distance from unions?

— All excerpts from a text by Tyler Coburn, 2024

It is unlawful for the holder of a license to incite dissatisfaction amongst employees with the intention of having them strike., 2024
12 3/4 x 14 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches (framed)
3 7/8 x 2 5/8 inches (card)
vinyl and ink on laminated paper