Consideration
Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 West 21st Street (2nd floor), NY 10011
16 - 19 November 2005
Opening: 16 March, 5 – 8pm
Hosted by Paula Cooper Gallery, PERFORMA presents Consideration, London-based artist Carey Young’s first solo exhibition in the US. It features a series of legally-enforceable contracts between artist and viewer.
Created in conjunction with a legal team, the text, video and performative works entice the viewer into agreements that explore notions of individual autonomy, freedom of speech and the social contract. Engaging participants in a series of contractual relationships, Young dissects the viewer’s experience of the exhibition, from accepting the exhibition invitation, to entering the exhibition space, to voicing an opinion about the works.
With legally-trained executives increasingly running movie studios, news agencies and universities, Consideration interrogates the legal ‘lock down’ of contemporary cultural life and develops Young’s interest in legal structures, language and the performative.
Consideration is presented by PERFORMA as part of PERFORMA05, the first biennial of visual art visual art performance in New York City. More than 20 venues throughout New York will present a multidisciplinary program of live performance, film screenings, lectures, and exhibitions from November 3 through 21, 2005. PERFORMA05 is organized by PERFORMA, a nonprofit arts organization committed to the research, development, and presentation of performance by visual artists. For more information, please visit www.performa-arts.org
With assistance from the British Council.
About the artist
Carey Young (born 1970, US/UK citizen) lives and works in London, where she received her MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1997. Using a variety of media including text, performance and video, her work has become increasingly recognised for its investigation of the growing incorporation of the personal and public domains into the commercial realm, with a number of her recent works exploring legal language and systems of control. She has exhibited widely, most notably in shows such as Beck’s Futures (ICA, London, 2003), A Short History of Performance, Part II (Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2003) and The British Art Show 6, (BALTIC, Newcastle & tour, 2005-2006.) Her works are held in the public collections of the Tate, Arts Council England and the Centre Pompidou.
About the legal team
Jaime Stapleton
Jaime Stapleton received a doctorate for the research into role of creative theory in the development of concepts of intellectual property and political economy in 2003. His book, Art & Invention, will be published by IB Tauris. He is currently Research Coordinator for the Adelphi Charter, at the Royal Society of Arts, London, and Researcher in Residence in Christiania, Copenhagen.
Robert Lands
Robert Lands is a London-based lawyer at the firm Finers Stephens Innocent LLP. He specialises in intellectual property, working with a wide spectrum of clients including visual artists, retailers, fashion designers and technology companies and handles IP, brand protection and commercial issues for brands ranging from the Queen’s perfumer to rock band Linkin Park. www.fsilaw.co.uk
Carey Young would also like to thank Anne Barron, a Senior Lecturer in Law at the London School of Economics, for her advice and assistance on this project. Her book Understanding Copyright will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2007.