Palais de Justice

2017. Single-channel HD video (from 4K), 16:9, colour, quadraphonic sound, 17 min 58 secs

Palais de Justice was filmed surreptitiously at the Palais de Justice in Brussels, an enormous and ornate 19th century courthouse designed to depict law in terms of the sublime. Contradicting the familiar patriarchal culture of law, Young's camera depicts female judges and lawyers at court. Sitting at trial, directing proceedings or delivering judgments, female judges are seen through a series of circular windows in courtroom doors. Always shooting without permission, Young subtly builds a counter-narrative: a legal system seemingly centered on, and perhaps controlled by women, as if male presence may be optional or unnecessary in this particular future. Young’s camera becomes implicated, either caught within reflections, or through becoming noticed by some of her subjects. The windows and the camera’s lens are suggested as an interwoven series of oculi, in which we watch justice as performance and are ourselves implicated as witnesses and voyeurs. The piece considers the complex relations between lenses, surveillance and ideas of framing or being framed, which are at the core of the law-related work Young has been developing for more than a decade.

“Quietly stunning ... vividly proposes a juridical world as it might otherwise be, a form of the Law that may someday be possible” - Jeffrey Kastner, Garage Magazine, 2017

”Transfixing (…) Palais is distilled to a simple, tantalizing promise. Women are in power. Men are small, nervous before them, awaiting their direction and judgement.” Johanna Fateman, ArtForum, 2017

“Magisterial” - Art Monthly, editorial, March 2019

Press coverage for this work includes:
Brian Dillon, London Review of Books
Joanna Fateman, Artforum
Matthew Bourbon, Artforum.com
Jeffrey Kastner, Garage Magazine (Vice magazine)
Jason Farago, New York Times
Maria Walsh, Art Monthly interview with Carey Young)
Jeffrey Kirkwood, Osmos Magazine
Francesco Tenaglia, Mousse (interview with Carey Young)
Musee Magazine (interview with Carey Young)
Elephant Magazine (interview with Carey Young)
JJ Charlesworth, ArtReview
Paul Carey-Kent, Photomonitor

Thanks to Annick Mottet for legal advice; Prof. Alison Diduck, UCL Laws; Prof. Les Moran, School of Law, Birkbeck; Prof. Linda Mulcahy, Law Dept, LSE for their research suggestions, to the Slade School of Fine Art for research funding and to Soho Sonic for sound design.