Before the Law

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, 2 Marsham Street

Spanning more than 20 years, Young’s primarily photographic work explores and interrogates law and justice systems in Europe and North America, specifically with regards to concerns of gender, language and representation. In the artist's own words, her work across explores ‘the ‘materiality of law as a lived and living system which people experience emotionally and haptically’.

'Before the Law' (2017) is one of a series of eponymously titled photographs shot inside the Palais de Justice in Brussels. The title comes from Franz Kafka’s 1915 parable, in which the protagonist is constantly denied access to ‘the law’. In the parable, a man comes to a gatekeeper seeking admission to the law, but the gatekeeper denies him entry at the present time. While the man waits to enter over the course of many years, the gate is kept open, allowing him to look into the interior. Drawing on Kafka’s parable, Young’s series depicts doorways as metaphors for the legal system itself.
In the selected photograph, viewers peer through a door, where they are only able to see a sliver of a painting. While the open door suggests a legal system that is available to all, the viewer’s position on the edge of this threshold evokes the complexities of gaining access to it.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

Artist

Carey Young (1970 - )

Title

Before the Law

Date

2017

Medium

digital c-type photograph

Dimensions

height: 110.5cm width: 152.4cm depth: 5cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Paula Cooper Gallery, July 2024

Provenance

Paula Cooper Gallery; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 24 July 2024

GAC number

19332