Julia Weist's 'Questioning' at New Theater Hollywood Heads to Art Basel Miami Beach

Key facts

• In 2024, the New York Department of State called Julia Weist to Albany to review her private investigator's license renewal.
• Weist obtained a PI license two years earlier to access restricted, surveillance-grade data for her art.
• She created diagrammatic collages from license-plate camera photographs of her own car taken at all hours in unfamiliar places.
• An earlier show featured a photographic reproduction of her own PI license, exploiting a legal loophole.
• The State spent most of the hour deciding whether an artist could legitimately hold the credential and pressed her on looking up neighbors' information.
• Weist recorded the interrogation on her phone; the State later said its copy couldn't be found, so she made her own.
• The recording became 'Questioning,' a performance at New Theater Hollywood with actors Erika Mugglin and Adron Duell lip-syncing to the real interrogation.
• New York never brought charges and renewed Weist's license through 2027; a 4K version of 'Questioning' will be shown at Art Basel Miami Beach this winter through her gallery.