27 Nov 2009

Para/Site Art Space presents Joseph Kosuth and Tsang Kin-Wah

Para/Site Art Space is honored to present a two-person exhibition by Joseph Kosuth (1945, Toledo, Ohio, USA) and Tsang Kin-Wah (1976, China).

This is the first time that Joseph Kosuth exhibits his work in China, and almost four years have passed since Tsang Kin-Wah's last solo show in Hong Kong. This exhibition opens a series of collaborations between artists from China and the West at Para/Site Art Space.

Tsang Kin-Wah has prepared the new installation If Someone Calls It Art, It's Kun(s)t, a text, sound and light installation related to Joseph Kosuth's works in the exhibition. The artist has included Kosuth's L'essence de la rhétorique est dans l'allégorie (1996) in this concept-specific installation, that addresses notions that are recurrent in the historical Conceptual Art Movement connected to linguistics and post-structuralism. This work occupies the main gallery of Para/Site Art Space. Tsang Kin-Wah indicates that this new work '…explores the openness, brutalities and 'limitations' of language and written texts, and, at the same time, makes comment on the 'cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit' and its 'over-conceptualization' as a form of representation'.

The show includes a historical selection of ten works on paper by Joseph Kosuth, dating from 1996 to 2008, such as Kurz, eine Metapher ist…(N. Goodman) (1996), Double Meaning (2005), Andersen Self Described (2006) and A Grammatical Remark (Pescara) (2005).

Joseph Kosuth is one of the founders of the Conceptual Art Movement in New York in the 60's. Joseph Kosuth is one of most internationally renowned artists working today. As an originator of the Conteptual Art Movement, his artistic practice is rooted in the notion of Philosophy and Linguistics, and particularly to the connection between language and its meaning. Kosuth draws on the ideas of Ludwig Wittgestein as well as Post-Structural Philosophers. Kosuth has been shown in all major museums and biennials worldwide, including four editions of Documenta in Kassel and three editions of The Venice Biennale. His works appear in numerous prestigious collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Tsang Kin-Wah studied at Camberwell College of Arts (London) and Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong). He has had solo shows at Yvon Lambert (New York), and more recently at Pékin Fine Arts (Beijing). He has also exhibited at the Xth Lyon Biennial, MOCA Shanghai, National Museum of Art (Oslo), KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art (Moscow), among others.

Gallery Talk:
(Sunday) 29 November, 2:30pm
Gallery Talk by Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya (Exhibition Curator)
at Para/Site Art Space

For more information, please contact Dominique Chiu at 2517-4620 or dominique@para-site.org.hk.
Tsang Kin-Wah is represented by Pékin Fine Arts.