Carey Young
Thomas Dane Gallery Project Space, London, UK
Carey Young, Plato Contract (2008)
‘Mutual Release’, the inaugural exhibition at the Thomas Dane Gallery Project Space, is a new commission by artist Carey Young. Curated by Lisa Rosendahl and arts lawyer Daniel McClean, it is the first in a series of projects entitled ‘Offer & Exchange: Sites of Negotiation in Contemporary Art’ that links contemporary art with the law. Over the next 18 months, a number of artists – including Jonathan Monk, Maria Eichhorn, and Santiago Sierra – will be commissioned to create works for locations such as a corporate collection, an art magazine and a public institution.
‘Mutual Release’ comprises seven new and recent works that deal with the subject of legal contracts. Plato Contract, Unilateral Contract, Disclaimer (Risk), Mutual Release and Counter Offer (all 2008) are text-based works. The exhibition also includes a video piece, Uncertain Contract (2008), and Donorcard (2005/2008, remade for this exhibition), an edition of playing card-sized objects.
Some of the main concerns within this exhibition are the context of the commercial gallery, temporal aspects and the question of authorship within the relations that define the art market, and the nature of legal language. Such concerns, as well as the implicit performative element of some of the pieces, connect ‘Mutual Release’ with works such as Yoko Ono’s Instruction Paintings (1961-62) or Joseph Kosuth’s The Fourth Investigation (1969). The difficult relationship to works concerned with Institutional Critique, however, is of particular interest when discussing ‘Mutual Release’. With works such as Plato Contract and Donorcard, Young tries to disturb the system of relations that determines the art market within the constrictions of a commercial gallery thus creating a link with these aforementioned critical positions.
Plato Contract is a framed print of a grey moonscape accompanied by a text aimed at the collector who, by purchasing this print, agrees that it will only attain the status of an artistic work if exhibited within the Plato Crater on the Moon (the location of which is handily indicated on the print itself). Young tries to create a delay and shift within the art market’s system of relations by denying the object the pre-existing status of ‘art’. Plato Contract only incorporates the potential to be an art work; the collector must become an active participant in order to ‘fulfil its destiny’ – which in this case is almost impossible to achieve.
Similarly, Donorcard, an edition of 750 brightly coloured cards signed by the artist, requires that visitors get actively involved in turning the object into an art work. In contrast to Plato Contract, however, the cards are available for free within the exhibition. The back of each states that, by adding their signature, visitors can turn these cards into art works which stay in their possession and retain the status of ‘art’ either the artist or the owner of the work has died. There is not only a shift from the singular artistic authorship to a form of joint authorship with the owner, these cards are also to be seen as works of art which will not endure the passage of time – the art work only exists as long as both signatures can be repeated. As in Plato Contract, Young creates a temporal rupture within the relationship between artist, work and owner. However, the fact that Donorcard is only a temporary art work does imply that monetary exchange is necessary in order to allow for an art work to retain its status within the market context.
Plato Contract and Donorcard aim to create a rupture within the market system in order to provide a space for thinking about the potential which may be opened up by a different set of relations. It is, however, questionable whether this can be achieved considering that, for example, Plato Contract will still be sold as a ‘conventional’ art work seemingly oblivious to the concerns that define the work. Through the ‘institutionalization of institutional critique’ (a phrase used as well as questioned by Andrea Fraser in her writings on the subject), early critical practices such as those of Michael Asher, Hans Haacke and Daniel Buren have now been absorbed into the institutional canon. It is, therefore, more important than ever to continue exploring ways of critically investigating the function, purpose and strategies of art institutions – be it commercial or public galleries, museums or art magazines. The question is whether this requires a stronger voice than is present within ‘Mutual Release’, something that Young has achieved herself in the past with various performance pieces such as Speechcraft (2007) and Optimum Performance (2003) which show the artist’s deep engagement with a contemporary rethoric practiced within corporate and legal contexts.
Bettina Brunner
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