CAREY YOUNG at Thomas Dane Project Space, London, 20 Nov - 15 Dec

Exhibition Description:

Thomas Dane Gallery and ELECTRA will be presenting Mutual Release, a new commission consisting of print, text and video works based on a legal theme by the artist Carey Young. This is the first exhibition at the Thomas Dane Project Space, and a first in the series of new commissions entitled Offer & Exchange: Sites of Negotiation in Contemporary Art, curated by Daniel McClean and Lisa Rosendahl and produced by ELECTRA.

Can the legal contract be a form of art? Young has worked closely with a team of lawyers specialising in media and intellectual property law, resulting in a series of new works which invite the viewer to enter into, or be privy to contractual relationships based on viewing, owning and collecting art. By treating the law as an artistic medium, she allows the viewer to experience the otherwise abstract space of the contract.

During the show, visitors to Thomas Dane Project Space will be offered a free work, which acquires the status of a work of art only once it has been signed by them. The owners and the artist have then entered into a contract, which ends only with the death of the artist and / or the owner. It is at this moment that art becomes bound to life and death.

Young plays on the legacies of Institutional Critique in a text work, where the artist and the gallery enter into a contract which offers each 'complete mutual release'. In her new video, we see an actor interpret legal terms from a commercial contract as a form of acting exercise.

With legally-trained executives increasingly being involved in contemporary culture by running movie studios, news agencies and universities, Mutual Release addresses the legal ‘lock down’ of contemporary cultural life.

Description:

Image: Still from Carey Young, 'Uncertain Contract', 2008, video. Actor Mark Burrell.
Copyright the artistCourtesy Thomas Dane Gallery, London.

About the Artist: Carey Young has exhibited extensively both in the UK and internationally, from her most recent solo show at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2007), and exhibiting in Performa 05 Biennial (2005), at Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2004), to John Hansard Gallery, Southampton & touring show (2001-2). Her work has appeared in numerous significant group shows. In 2009 Young will have solo shows at The Power Plant, Toronto, the Museum of Contemporary Art St Louis and Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis. Please see her website for information about her work at www.careyyoung.com

The Legal Team who collaborated with Young include Robert Lands, Partner and Head of Intellectual Property & Media at London-based law firm Finers Stephens Innocent and Dr. Jaime Stapleton, Associate Research Fellow at the School of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London.

The show is curated by Daniel McClean, practising lawyer specialising in art law, media and intellectual property law at Withers LLP (London and New York), Lisa Rosendahl, curator and writer, Director of the Baltic Art Center in Visby, Sweden and ELECTRA, a UK-based contemporary art agency which specialises in curating, commissioning and producing ambitious cross-disciplinary projects by artists working across sound, moving image, performance and the visual arts. The show also includes the support of the Arts Council England.

www.electra-productions.com

Full Contact Details:

Thomas Dane Project Space - 14 Mason's Yard, London SW1

t: +44 (0) 20 7925 2505
f : +44 (0) 20 7925 2506