Paul Kos

West of the Great Divide: 1968-2008
January 3 - February 2, 2008
Reception: January 3, 5:30 - 7:30pm


I Saw the Light, 2007
saw, sheath and light bulb



Pilot Butte, 2006
video projection on paint, canvas, wood
55 1/2” x 72 3/4”



Canary/Coal (Wait for a Song), 2007
coal, wood, steel, canary



Stag’s Leap, 2007
deer horn with graphite on wood
28” x 40” x 11”



Sluice, 1973
steel, 24 carat gold leaf



Basho, 2007
2 channel video
55 1/2” x 72 3/4”



Scything, 2005
horse hoof, plastic figure
5 1/2” x 5 1/2” x 5 1/2”



XC On Brushstrokes, 2005
video projection on paint, canvas, wood
37 1/2” x 56 1/4”



Yuba Red Rock, 2007
video projection on paint, canvas, wood
55 1/2” x 73”

Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to present, West of the Great Divide, an exhibition of new work by Paul Kos.

Kos’ first exhibition at Gallery Paule Anglim since the national tour of his retrospective, Everything Matters, will offer the entire gallery space to a range of artworks from a painting with superimposed video projection to Title, a sculptural installation featuring an antique 2-man saw.

Since the early 1970’s Paul Kos’s work has challenged conventions of art media and subject matter. For a global audience he staged new possibilities for artistic treatments of time, space and cultural systems.

By means of a wall of video monitors, his 1987 Chartres Bleu radiates the changes in daylight as experienced through a stained glass window. This seminal Kos work will be reprised in the Getty Museum exhibition, California Video opening February 2008.

Kos, one of the founders of the Bay Area conceptual movement, has exhibited internationally and has work represented in major museum collections including New York’s MoMA, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, SFMOMA, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Additional Available Works


Glass Bell, 1991
silkscreened glass,wood blocks
23" x 30" x 30"
Edition of 7



Sound of Ice Melting, 1970
Photograph, Edition of 3, 24” x 20”
Installation, Edition of 3



Equilibre IV, 1992
Broom, coat hanger, candle and bell
57” x 40”



Memory Survives Silenced Tongues, 1989
1,000 watt bulb, steel pendulum, etched glass
118" x 88" x 6 1/2"



Soot, 1995
coal, copper pot, steel, water
52 1/2 x 72 x 80"



Tunnel, 1995
wood table, cheese round, and toy train with track
32" x 96" x 23 3/4"
Edition of 2



Abyss, 1992
mixed media
24" x 29 1/2" x 29 1/2"



Brushstrokes (After Monet II), 1998
Red fir installed on wood floor
10.5" x 153" x 29"



Caucasus Carpet, 1995
Carpet and engraved circular architectural element
114” x 50”
(floor detail on right)



Trotsky, 1989
Red wood stool, ice axe driven into sheet-rock wall with one blow
118" x 13" x 20.5"
Edition of 2



Fuerte, 1992
pepper plant, parabolic mirror, steel stool
43" x 24" x 24"



Study for Galvanized Bell, c. 1988
photograph, Edition of 3
10” x 8” or 22” x 18 7/8”



Joseph's Coat of Many Colors, 1997-98
Wool, natural dye
396” x 60”



Everything Matters, 2003
digital print, Edition of 3
36” x 48”



Universal Donor, Universal Receiver, 1995
Felt, paper, wood frame
17.5" x 17" (each panel)



Not Whole, 2001
Wood, video, audio
Dimensions variable (approx. 40” x 27-3/4”)
(detail on right)



Das Geld, 1998
Copper, steel bells, 22k gold leaf
33" x 24" x 8"



Das Geld II, 1998
Emboss, aquatint, 22k gold leaf, red felt on paper
5.5" x 5"



Das Geld IV, 1998
Emboss, aquatint, 22k gold leaf, Frontier Press
11 9/16" x 11.75"



Emboss III, 1995
Photograph, Edition of 10
80 x 38 x 1 1/2"



Sand Piece, 1971
Sixteen mesh silica white sand and brass tube
Gelatin silver print photographs available
Installation: Sand and tube: 1/8” diameter
Edition of 3



Roping Boar’s Tusk, 1971
DVD (transfered from Super-8 film)



Reflection, 1998
Paper, chaulk, mirror, videotape documentation
60" x 53.5"

Video stills of Reflection:




Pawn, 1991
2,500 magnetic chess pieces, steel, wood
118" x 88" x 11 1/2"
(detail on right)



Paint Pawn, 1992
Poured enamel paint on glass and wood
36” x 30” x 30”



Montezuma's Gift (Bronze & Gold), 1998
Bronze, 22k gold leaf, Nordhammer Foundry
4.5" x 4.5" x 4.5"



Montezuma's Gift, 1998
Emboss, 22k gold leaf, Frontier Press
16 5/16" x 17 7/16"



Montezuma's Revenge II, 1998
Graphite on paper
15" x 19.25"

"Paul Kos was one of the major figures in the early Conceptual Art movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Already defined by cultural change and political activism, the Bay Area became an important center for the revolutionary spirit in art and with it, the rise of the new genres of video, performance, and installation. Kos was among the first artists (in step with contemporaries such as Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman) to incorporate video, as well as sound and interactivity, into sculptural installations."
-Constance Lewallen, Senior Curator for Exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum

Click here to view: KQED's Spark Profile with Video on Paul Kos

Click here to view: Paul Kos' Retrospective at NYU's Grey Gallery

Click here to view: Paul Kos' Retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Copyright Gallery Paule Anglim
14 Geary Street | San Francisco, CA 94108 | 415.433.2710