For more than six years, artist Courtney McClellan has studied the relationship between performance and the law. Her inquiry centers on the legal simulations and professional practices used to educate future attorneys. During trial simulation, students may play the role of lawyer, witness, or judge in the courtroom. Their actions are often theatrical and their assertions are often speculative. Curator Robert Blackson said, “Simulation is practice in service to theory.”

Simulations is a photo installation that includes images of practice courtrooms at law schools across the American South. The series depicts spaces that simultaneously function as courtroom, classroom, and theater. These sites occasionally host the actual adjudication of law, for example a state appellate case, and thus blur the boundaries between real and staged experience. McClellan’s images address this interwoven architecture of training, performance, and power.

https://mocaga.org/calendar/courtneymclellan/

Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia

(Jan 30-March 28)

For more than six years, artist Courtney McClellan has studied the relationship between performance and the law. Her inquiry centers on the legal simulations and professional practices used to educate future attorneys. During trial simulation, students may play the role of lawyer, witness, or judge in the courtroom. Their actions are often theatrical and their assertions are often speculative. Curator Robert Blackson said, “Simulation is practice in service to theory.”

Simulations is a photo installation that includes images of practice courtrooms at law schools across the American South. The series depicts spaces that simultaneously function as courtroom, classroom, and theater. These sites occasionally host the actual adjudication of law, for example a state appellate case, and thus blur the boundaries between real and staged experience. McClellan’s images address this interwoven architecture of training, performance, and power.

A Working Artist Project Exhibition

Selection by Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Chief Curator at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Forthcoming catalog essay written by Kyle Dancewicz, Interim Director at SculptureCenter, Long Island City NY

Recorded Artist Talk and 360 tour of the Exhibition:

https://mocaga.org/calendar/courtneymclellan/

Exhibition Documentation by Fredrik Brauer