Joseph Kosuth — Consciousness of Self, Imschoot / The Archives, Rotterdam, 1991

Screenprint in yellow and blue on black paper. Imschoot, Uitgevers, Ghent / The Archives, Art Information Center, Rotterdam, 1991. 100 × 60 cm.

Condition: good vintage condition; light handling marks, soft creasing, minor edge and corner wear, with surface softness visible in the black paper. Presents strongly.

Large poster designed by Joseph Kosuth for Books by Artists, an Imschoot, Uitgevers presentation at The Archives, Art Information Center, Rotterdam, 8 September – 25 October 1991. Silkscreen printed in yellow and blue on black paper.

The work carries a quotation from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind across the surface: “Consciousness of self is in itself and for itself when and because it is in itself and for itself for another consciousness of self; in other words it is only by being recognized.” Kosuth places philosophical language into the format of an exhibition announcement. The poster does not illustrate the event so much as perform its terms: book, text, authorship, recognition, institution.

Imschoot, founded in Ghent as a specialist artist-book publisher, became known for distinctive limited artist publications, often giving artists freedom to design the book as part of the work itself. Its circle included major Conceptual and Minimal figures including John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner and Peter Downsbrough.

A poster for artists’ books, by an artist whose medium is language. The support announces a publishing event, but also folds that event back into Kosuth’s own system: quotation, display, context, proposition. The blue institutional text nearly disappears into the black ground, leaving Hegel’s sentence to operate as image, title, and administrative surface.