KAY ROSEN
NEW WORK 2020-2021
Reviewed by Frieze
On view through October 16
Rosen’s words are eminently polished in their execution and, like much text art, bear a strong kinship to advertising copy. But these are also condensed poetic phrases, the best of which offer a real-time critique of the vacuity of public political discourse. It’s an approach that risks didacticism, and yet, thankfully, Rosen’s sense of humour averts this. As immediate as these works are, they invite us to contemplate and perhaps to misread or overread...
When I first saw the ornate An Ex-Texan (2021) – Rosen was born in Corpus Christi – I mistakenly read ‘An Essex Man’ (coincidentally the title of a 2021 Michael Landy work that also alludes to an artist’s ambivalence about a region). A painting such as An Ex-Texan is a simple biographical statement, yet so much depends on context, typography, colour and, inherently, the social space of the gallery in which works such as these can once again be viewed freely.
—Paul Stephens, Frieze.com
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