Carey Young
(British/American, b. 1970)
Counter Offer, 2008
Archival inkjet diptych print
Gift of Charlotte and Alan Artus
Carey Young’s transdisciplinary artistic practice draws from economics, law, politics, science, and communication. Delving into the literature of the corporate and legal worlds, Young scrutinizes the jargon and rhetoric of these professions in her installations and text-based performance works. Counter Offer gives rise to a critical view of the powers that govern contemporary societies. By presenting the two “offers” as separately framed documents, Young positions “liberty” and “justice” as a binary either/or scenario rather than inextricably linked. The viewer is asked to decide between these two inalienable rights. Young notes that “through the act of reading, Counter Offer both erases and ‘withdraws’ itself.”
Biography
Young is a multidisciplinary visual and performance artist. She spent her academic career in England, studying at Manchester Polytechnic, the University of Brighton, and the Royal College of Art in London. Young's works have been widely exhibited at such institutions as the Dallas Museum of Art; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Kanal–Centre Pompidou, Brussels; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Power Plant, Toronto; and Tate Britain, London. She has participated in a number of biennials, including those in Moscow, Taipei, Sharjah, and Venice.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including an upcoming Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the Elephant Trust Award, and Creative Arts Fellowship through the University of Oxford, among others. She has also been selected for residencies with the Casino Luxembourg, the Sharjah Art Foundation, the BBC, and First Tuesday. Two monographs on her work have been published. She resides in London, where she is an Assistant Professor at Slade School of Fine Art, and is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery in New York.
