KAY ROSEN PRESENTS HER FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION IN SPAIN AT PARKING

Parking, the public art space curated by Moishan Gaspar, presents a new installation by Kay Rosen, one of the most significant artists of the contemporary American art scene and a key figure in the exploration of language as an artistic medium. Conceived specifically for the Parking space in Barcelona, the installation marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in Spain.

Kay Rosen (Corpus Christi, Texas, 1943) has developed, since the late 1960s, an artistic practice centred on the visual, material and conceptual possibilities of language. Through paintings, drawings, murals, collages, prints, installations and videos, Rosen transforms everyday words and expressions into images capable of generating new meanings. Her work approaches language as found material, using elements such as scale, colour, typography, composition and architectural space to alter our perception of seemingly familiar words. Although her work frequently addresses political and social issues — from power relations to gender, racism and contemporary crises — Rosen has insisted that her starting point is not politics, but language itself. Her works are characterised by a singular combination of formal precision, humour, concision and ambiguity, in which a word or a brief phrase can become an image, a sculpture or even an architecture.

It is within this territory that the work proposed for Parking is situated. The words “Parking & Parqueen” appear on the wall, a play on words in English that, through the ending of “Parking”, brings the words King and Queen into view. With her characteristic irony, Rosen introduces a reference to feminism and inclusive language, reinforced by the colour of the wall, situated somewhere between pink — traditionally associated with girls — and purple — historically associated with feminist movements. The work thus inhabits a territory of ambiguity in which it is not immediately clear whether we are looking at a critique, a reivindication, or both at once.

Her work has been presented at some of the leading art institutions in the United States and Europe, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Drawing Center, New York and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen.