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Rebecca Key, MFA, has exhibited internationally, and worked as an art director in the film and television industry until 2006.
Key uses the placement of objects to examine the relationship between the artist and the gallery space, exploring the mythology that surrounds the creative process, within the institution, and other specific sites.
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Changeover, 68 Hope Street, Liverpool, UK 2008
"For Key, site-specific forensics has become something of a specialty. Past shows include the transformation of a gallery's exhibition space into its back office, putting the gritty business of art -- or a facsimile thereof -- on display. Another project found her turning a gallery (located in a studio building) into an artist's studio; opening night visitors feared they'd stumbled into the wrong place.
This kind of trickery isn't just one-note high jinks,
it's tough love. Once we're familiar with a place,
we almost always tune it out. Key jolts us awake by making the familiar strange. For a moment, at least, we're aware of what surrounds us."
---The Washington Post
"Key creates installations that examine social space. She has previously created an arts administrator’s office in a gallery space,a creative inversion that ought to have been too near the knuckle for many."
---a-n magazine
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Using film and television industry set dressing techniques, Key has transformed a gallery into an arts admin office: Administration (2005), and another into artist’s studios: Bankley Studios Gallery (2006).
In Changeover (2008) the gallery was dressed to appear to be in-between exhibitions, remnants used in the previous show (The Martha Rosler Library) placed alongside elements of a fictitious subsequent show.
In Archetype (2010) one wall of the gallery returned to it’s former appearance as a Washington DC alleyway, highlighting that by using simply the archetypal white wall and grey floor, any unusual site can be made into a gallery.
For Counterfeit (2010), Key’s installation appeared as a group show exhibition. The props in the installation took reference from the other artists she met on the international residency program in Iceland during her stay. The fictitious
group show was her personal construct of what their group show at the end of the month could look like, questioning concepts of artwork authenticity and craft.
Counterfeit, SIM, Reykjavik, Iceland 2010
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