Judging the Image: Art, Value, Law by Alison Young
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2006.614_2.x |
| Author | Ronnie Lippens |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
about its compatibility in relation in EU state aid laws, its impact on economic
stability and employment and, indeed, its environmental e¡ectiveness.
In conclusion, Lee’s book provides an extremely important contribution to
contemporary scholarship on the development of European environmental law.
Her analysis of the challenges it faces and the extent to which it has responded is
both innovative and stimulating. Due to the richness and diversity of material
covered, the book will be valuable to environmental law scholars as both a
research and teaching aid. In addition, much of the discussion will be relevant in
the analysis of other regulatory systems such as health and safety, and food stan-
dards. There is no doubt that many of the issues raised by Lee will continue to
in£uence EU environmental law in the decades to come.
Carolyn Abbot
n
Alison Young,Judging the Image: Art, Value, Law,London: Routledge, 2005,
186 pp, pb d22.99.
This is a gripping and, in places, touching book. I am not using these words
lightly here. Let me explain.Well into the book, after Chapter 5 (‘The Art of
Injury and the Ethics of Witnessing’), Young tells us of her visit to the Simon
Wiesenthal Museumof Tolerance in Los Angeles.There is awalk-through exhibit
which ends (the word Final Solution did come to mind) in an imitation gas
chamber.Young ¢nds herself in the chamber, as does the reader who, likeYoung,
goes through a range of emotions and needs quite some time to adjust to this
situation. But there is no time for such adjustment, for, in the gas chamber,‘a ¢g-
ure detaches itself out of the darkness’, comes up to Young and the reader, and
speaks: ‘I am a survivor of Auschwitz. Is there anything you want to ask me?’
Young, and this reader, reading her account, couldonly stumble away,‘horri¢ed’,
‘in tears’,‘mumbling no, no’(p120).
The scene just mentioned is taken from one of the ‘viewing (de)position’ sec-
tions in the book. HereYoung explores her ownexperiences with particular exhi-
bitions, installations, artworks, events, or people. Some of these experiences form
the basis for the chapters proper.Young’s book is thus about the aesthetic dimen-
sion of her, your, my, and law’s experience of and reaction to art. It is thisaesthetic
dimension, with its phantasmal and emotional charge, with the desires, a¡ections
and disgusts that underpin it, which lies at the heartof Young’s e¡ort. It therefore
makes a lot of sense forYoungto begi n such an undertaking at the point of aesthetic
experience. And so she does.The book also includesYoung’s accounts ^ in ‘viewing
(de)positions’ ^ of her personal experience with Spencer Tunick’s photographic
shoots (she took part in one of them), Andres Serrano’s visceral art, gra⁄ti culture,
Gonzalez-Torres’s i nstallations on HIV/AIDS, and Manhattan’s Ground Zero.
The essaysi nthis book aim to explore the‘co-implication of lawand the image,
of jurisprudence and aesthetics’.This is a highly interdisciplinary enterprise, the
main topic of which, ¢ttingly, is‘the abject’.The abject here then stands for ‘that
n
Universityof Manchester.
Reviews
861
rThe Modern LawReview Limited 2006
(2006) 69(5) MLR 855^86 8
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