Kay Rosen - KAY ROSEN : ICI - Exhibitionmfc-michèle didier | Paris - Brussels - PARIS

Born in 1943 in Corpus Christi, Kay Rosen lives in New York and Gary, Indiana in the United States.

Since the 1970s, the American artist has used language as her main material. At the crossroads of what is said and what is seen, she paints words that she arranges and displays in public and private spaces – on different scales – but often «augmented». From the point of view of linguistics, which is the artist's field of training, her works are on the border between humor and poetry. But there is nothing gratuitous about her approach, which aims to shake things up and awaken social and political consciousness.

Rosen's work has been described as sculpture, architecture or performance. In this respect, Roberta Smith once called her a "writer's sculptor" and Eileen Myles called her the "poet of the art world."

In her paintings, drawings, videos and wall installations, the artist also approaches language as a tool she has rediscovered. She identifies the potential of semiotics to become more than what it is at first sight, and if the artist modifies the scale, colour, composition, supports and graphics, it is in order to allow other meanings to emerge. Minimalist form, aesthetic impact and intelligent content coexist in an impressive, even spectacular way.

Kay Rosen has been the subject of numerous critical articles, as well as group and solo exhibitions. In 1998, she was the subject of a two-part mid-career survey entitled Kay Rosen: Li[f]eli[k]e, organised by Connie Butler and Terry R. Myers at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Otis College of Art Design. She has received several awards, including a 2017 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Grants. Rosen taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for twenty-four years.