The first major, one-person survey of the artist’s work in the US, Kay Rosen: lifeli[k]e presented twenty-five years of paintings, drawings, wall works, early photo-text projects, and ephemera across two locations. MOCA presented works from 1988 to 1998, while the Otis Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, LA, showcased works from 1972 to 1987. Two works on paper from 1972 were installed at MOCA to provide context and demonstrate Rosen’s longstanding interest in linguistics, in which she was trained.
Reinterpreting French linguistic theory in playful, text-based works, Rosen manipulated color, typography, and scale along with language itself to deconstruct the systematics of signs and communication. The closing installation of the show, Corpus (1992), comprises thirteen enigmatic text paintings resembling ransom-note cutouts, each containing a nonsense or apparently random “word” with a hidden structural meaning.
The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue.
Kay Rosen: lifeli[k]e was organized by Connie Butler, Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Terry R. Myers, independent curator.