An Illuminated Ontology

Joseph Kosuth’s installation of neon work at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York creates an all-encompassing and profound experience for the viewers.

Joseph Kosuth, “Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology”, view of the exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
Featuring over forty works dating from 1965 to the present, “Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology” simultaneously chronicles Joseph Kosuth’s fifty-year investigation into the role of language and meaning in art, and his consistent use of neon.
The exhibition includes historic early works, featuring one of the most important neons Kosuth ever made, Five Fives (to Donald Judd) [blue], (1965), alongside more recent works such as his Camus Illuminated series (2013). Installed in a response to the gallery’s specific architectural space, the exhibition employs areas never before activated for exhibition purposes, creating an all-encompassing and profound experience for the viewer.
Joseph Kosuth, “Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology”, view of the exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
Joseph Kosuth, “Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology”, view of the exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

A radical pioneer of conceptual and installation art, Kosuth initiated appropriation strategies, language-based works and the use of neon as a medium – considering it a form of “public writing” without fine art associations – in the 1960s.

Kosuth’s ongoing investigations into language and perception, and the appropriated use of literature, philosophy and psychology have characteristically taken the form of works in series, a format that opens up space for play and reflexivity in multiple directions. Key examples from the artist’s most iconic neon series will be on view, including elements from Kosuth’s renowned Freud series (1981–1989), in which the artist puts the psychoanalyst’s texts regarding unconscious functioning
meaningfully into play using wall pieces and installations, and from his acclaimed Wittgenstein series (1989–1993), which illustrate the fervent influence of the philosopher on Kosuth’s foundation of thinking, and belief that art should ask questions about itself, as a language engaged in the production of meaning.


until December 19, 2016
Joseph Kosuth
Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology

Sean Kelly Gallery
475 10th Ave, New York

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