Joseph Kosuth, the world famous pioneer of conceptual art in the 1960s, celebrates his 80th birthday this January in London, with a solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers. Kosuth questions philosophy, language and authorship, with a tautological approach to materials, expanding from definitions-based works such as One and Three Chairs, 1965, to major site-specific installations. A veteran of Kassel documenta exhibitions and the Venice Biennale, Kosuth has exhibited, taught and lectured internationally, his writings translated into many languages.
Kosuth has lectured at The Courtauld, joining Professor Sarah Wilson’s 10-year ‘Global Conceptualism’ MA celebration on zoom during Covid, and has welcomed students to his London studio and Italian palazzo. Courtauld students have made special studies of his works with neon, his installation at the Freud Museum Vienna of 1989, his collaboration with Ilya Kabakov, Corridor of Two Banalities, Warsaw, 1994, and more.
Joseph Kosuth is one of the pioneers of Conceptual art and installation art, initiating language based works and appropriation strategies in the 1960s. His work has consistently explored the production and role of language and meaning within art. His more than forty year inquiry into the relation of language to art has taken the form of installations, museum exhibitions, public commissions and publications throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia, including seven Documenta(s) and eight Venice Biennale(s), one of which was presented in the Hungarian Pavilion (1993). Awards include the Brandeis Award, 1990, Frederick Wiseman Award, 1991, the Menzioned’Onore at the Venice Biennale, 1993, and the Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et desLettres from the French government in 1993. He received a Cassandra Foundation Grant in 1968. In June 1999, a 3.00 franc postage stamp was issued by the French Government in honor of his work in Figeac. In February 2001, he received the LauraHonoris Causa, doctorate in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Bologna. In 2001 his novel, ‘Purloined’ was published by Salon Verlag, Cologne. In October 2003 he received the Austrian Republic’s highest honour for accomplishments in science and culture, the Decoration of Honour in Gold for services to the Republic of Austria. Kosuth’s work entitled ‘ni apparence ni illusion’ opened at the Musée du Louvre, Paris in 2009 and became a permanent installation in 2014. In 2015 the Instituto Superior de Arte, at the University of Havana, awarded him a Honoris Causa doctorate, presented during the 12th Havana Art Biennial. In 2022 he received the Osten Biennial of Drawing Skopje Grand Prix for Lifetime Achievement, presented during the Venice Biennale, 2022.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, January 31, 1945. Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Art, 1963-64; The School of Visual Arts, New York City, 1965-67; New School for Social Research, New York, (anthropology and philosophy) 1971-72. Faculty, Department of Fine Art, The School of Visual Arts, New York City 1967-1985; Professor at theHochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg, 1988-90; Staatliche Akademie der BildendeKünste, Stuttgart, 1991-1997; and the Kunstakademie Munich, 2001-2006. He has functioned as visiting professor and guest lecturer at various universities and institutions for nearly forty years, some of which include: Yale University, Cornell University, New York University, Duke University, UCLA, Cal Arts, Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Royal Academy, Copenhagen, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University, University of Rome, Berlin Kunstakademie, Royal College of Art, London, Glasgow School of Art, The Hayward Gallery, London, The Sorbonne, Paris, The Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna and IUAV University of Venice. Presently he holds the Millard Chair at Goldsmiths, Department of Fine Arts, University of London. He lives and works in New York City and Venice, Italy.
Sarah Wilson is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Courtauld. Co-curator of Paris, Capital of the Arts, 1900-1968 (Royal Academy London, 2002), she published The Visual World of French Theory, vol. 1, Figurations in 2010 (French, 2018), and Picasso, Marx and socialist realism in France, 2013. She won the international AICA Critics prize in 2015. Wilson launched the masters special option ‘Global Conceptualism. The last avant-garde or a new beginning?’ in 2011, which is spearheaded by Mallarmé, Duchamp, Yves Klein and Kosuth, and has since supervised connected MA theses dealing with conceptual and post-conceptual art from the Cold War period to the present, and from Mexico to the Philippines.
Organised by Professor Sarah Wilson, The Courtauld, in collaboration with Sprüth Magers.
