ART CITIES:London-Joseph Kosuth & Seamus Farrell

On the wall: Joseph Kosuth, “(A Grammatical Remark) #11, 2019, on the floor Seamus Farrell, Britain, A Horizon Line Alined, 2019, Installation view at Chelsea Space-London, 2020, Courtesy Chelsea SpaceJoseph Kosuth and Seamus Farrell have been invited to conceive two sites-specific works at Chelsea Space. The artists have presented similar versions of these works and installation concept on occasion of the 12th Havana Biennale. Both artists engage with the architectural and cultural context of the exhibition space showing how art is itself essentially a questioning process.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Chelsea College of Arts Archive

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. Kosuth’s installation entitled “(A Grammatical Remark) #11” (2019) develops from the artist’s interest and use of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of language, and a body of works referred to as Kosuth’s “Wittgenstein” Series begun in 1988. Through the use of an appropriated text from the renown novel “Paradise”, by Cuban author José Lezama Lima, Kosuth physically and conceptually plays on the notion of “punctuation and grammar” and literally punctuates the space by creating a grammatology of his own. The presentational aspects of the installation include resurfacing the walls with a single line of silkscreened text traversing the architectural context in one continuous line. The text is articulated with white neon components forming all the points of the sentence’s punctuation. For Kosuth what begins as a formal device in a shift of meaning ends in a metaphorical investigation of art’s basic agenda. Seamus Farrell is a self-taught artist of Irish and English origin raised in France who began his career while he works as an assistant to a number of established artists. From the age of sixteen he has fabricated, installed and produced site-specific special projects and commissions all over the world. Farrell’s glass floor work titled “Britain, A Horizon Line Alined” (2019) is a reflection on the inherent transitory power of delineation, the act of marking perimeters, and defining spaces through line drawing and boundary making; revealing how the gesture of outlining a perimeter is politically charged. The work refers to the idea of a line as a boundary, not just a physical boundary but also the artificial political perimeter that defines the nation in which the work is located. The viewer is invited to question current changes in geo-politics and rethink the cultural impact and value of these shifting perspectives.

Info: Chelsea Space, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip Street, London, Duration: 21/1-28/2/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-17:00, www.chelseaspace.org

On the wall: Joseph Kosuth, “(A Grammatical Remark) #11, 2019, on the floor Seamus Farrell, Britain, A Horizon Line Alined, 2019, Installation view at Chelsea Space-London, 2020, Courtesy Chelsea Space
On the wall: Joseph Kosuth, (A Grammatical Remark) #11, 2019, on the floor Seamus Farrell, Britain, A Horizon Line Alined, 2019, Installation view at Chelsea Space-London, 2020, Courtesy Chelsea Space