Read this review at your own risk. Such warnings are at the heart of Carey Young’s latest exhibition. Mixing business with Beuys, Young views language as a form of social sculpture, and the disclaimer as a way to create a negative space which relieves a company of any legal responsibility for its products. Her video Terms and Conditions, 2004, displayed on a plasma screen, underscores the prevalence of disclaimers, especially in the era of dot-com enterprises, while offering a parodic warning about their omnipresence. A woman wearing a nice neat business suit welcomes the viewer to an empty field in the middle of the sunny countryside. Accessing this “site,” as she explains in her monologue, binds the viewer to a series of terms and conditions, whether refraining from suing the owners or refraining from copying without their permission.
While demonstrating how free open spaces can be commercialized and restricted through legalese, Young unearths a conflict between art and the law. Aesthetic experience—from Père Bouhours’s je-ne-sais-quoi to Kant’s beauty—tends to escape definition while the law defines everything down to the fine print. As the law encroaches upon art—whether film or exhibitions—the undefinablity of aesthetic experience becomes art’s greatest legal liability. But of course, this reviewer will not be held liable for any confusion arising from this quandary, let alone any harm that may come about from viewing the exhibition.
