Joseph Kosuth (born 1945) places language at the center of his artistic practice, both as content and as subject. Known for his celebrated neon works, the artist will present a major new large-scale work, entitled A Chain of Resemblance (2026), which will be installed at the main entrance of Casa dei Tre Oci. The work is based on a text by Michel Foucault and explores how meaning is shaped by both the text and the context in which it appears, revealing how language is never neutral but intrinsically influenced by its environment and reception.

The first floor of Casa dei Tre Oci will house Kosuth’s early work dating back to the 1960s. Among these, one of his most influential works, One and Three Mirrors (1965), will be exhibited, in which meaning is embodied in the relationship between its three components: image, object and text. In this installation, the viewer’s reflection becomes part of the work itself, allowing him to grasp a fragment of the subject.

Three adjacent rooms house works that question authorship, starting with Kosuth’s radical rethinking of audiences, community, and collaboration. These include The Fifth Investigation (1969), Text/Context (1978-1979) and Where Are you Standing? (1976), a poster originally produced by the artist for the 1976 Venice Biennale as part of the International Local collective (composed of Sarah Charlesworth, Joseph Kosuth and Anthony McCall), which will be re-proposed on this occasion. During the exhibition, a 1970 poster, The Seventh Investigation, will also be created and installed in a public space in Venice.