Kay Rosen. NOW AND THEN

The Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst is presenting the first institutional solo exhibition of Kay Rosen in Europe. Ever since the 1970s, the American artist (*1943 in Corpus Christi, Texas; lives in New York City and Gary, Indiana) has been using language as artistic material. She is internationally known above all for wall works which render individual words, sentences or series of letters, often in massive dimensions. Coming together here in an impressive manner are minimalist form, aesthetic impact and intelligent contents.

Whether climate crisis, AIDS, gender issues or the relationship between power, self-empowerment and powerlessness—her works are permeated by political themes and reflect  with pointed expressivity on current debates. Kay Rosen, however, emphasizes that she is not motivated by politics but by language itself. She seeks constantly new interconnections between image, word and script. For this purpose, she uses multifaceted visual and typographical strategies that extend a bridge between the disciplines of the visual arts, literature and poetry. In this endeavor, she takes delight in breaking rules. Thus she creates plays on words and linguistic images that not infrequently employ levity and wittiness for seductive effect and only gradually reveal their ambiguity.

For example, the word “Kiss” changes with only a few interventions into a “Kiss of Death.” Or a wall-filling list of historical potentates and popes ends perturbingly with the name of the American civil rights activist Malcolm  X. From this perspective, Kay Rosen plays an exemplary role, because her works and “words don’t scream for change, rather they quietly enact change, leading by example” (Kenneth Goldsmith).

The exhibition in Bremen brings together around 40 works, including several large-format wall works, paintings, drawings, prints and videos. To be seen in addition to exemplary major works is also a new, six-part language picture that was especially developed for the spaces of the museum.

“The Weserburg is making possible, in recognition of the artist’s eightieth birthday, a fresh encounter with and rediscovery of a complex artistic oeuvre which, in its incomparable combination of humorous lightness and analytical sharpness, is now receiving its first comprehensive presentation in Europe.” Ingo Clauß, curator

KAY ROSEN. NOW AND THEN

18 NOVEMBER 2023—31 MARCH 2024

WESERBURG MUSEUM FÜR MODERNE KUNST | BREMEN, GERMANY

On the cover: Kay Rosen, Kiss of Death, 2011
Private collection, Bremen, Germany

Source: Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst