Joseph Kosuth - 'Fort! Da!' poster - Leo Castelli 1985

Beautiful poster produced for the exhibition of 'Fort! Da!', a work by Joseph Kosuth presented at Leo Castelli, New York in March 1985.
‘Fort! Da!’ references a game Sigmund Freud recounts in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1920, in which Freud describes his grandson throwing a toy and retrieving it while exclaiming Fort! (Gone!) and Da! (Here!). In Kosuth’s exhibition, the viewers face large scale photographs reproducing the gallery space. The photographs have black frames, incorporate elements of text and various colored crosses, and they are installed on the opposite wall they depict. Therefore, the viewers are invited to participate in a variation of the game Freud describes, in which the space seems to appear and disappear in front of them. As Kosuth states: “I have always considered the ‘spectator’ to be an important part of the making process. My work never, I believe, pandered to the presumptions of the viewer–in fact, I feel that the ‘making process’ hinges on rupturing those presumptions.”

56x82cm - great condition