PAUL KOS 1975 born in Rock Springs. . 1942 Landscape Video. Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach. Lives and works in San Fran cisco PAUL KOS: CHARTRES BLEU 1977

10eme Biennale de ' EDUCATION Paris, Musee d Art Moderne. Paris

Georgetown University. Washington. D.C.. 1961-62 1978 Art Institute. B.A .. 1965. M.F.A.. 1967 American Art from the 10eme Biennale de Paris. The Hudson River Museum. Yonkers. New York

SELECTED INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS 1979 Space/Time/Sound/1970's:A Decade in the Bay Area, 1969 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Participationkinetics, , Richmond. California 1981 CaliforniaPerformance. Museum of Contempo rary Art. 1971 Chicago Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco TVin Place, San Francisco Art Institute 1972 1982 Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco 100 Yearsof California Sculpture. The Oakland 1973 Museum. Oakland. California La Joila Museum of Contempo rary Art. La Jolla. 1984 California Video and Ritual, The Museum of Modern Art. 1974 New York M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. San Francisco Video: A Retrospective 1974-84, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach. California 1975 Leo Castelli Gallery. New York 1985 Video from Vancouver to San Diego, The Museum of 1976 Modern Art. New York Leo Castelli Gallery. New York 1986 1977 Second Newport Biennial, Newport Harbor Art e Long Beach Museum of fl.rt. LongB ach. California Museum. Newport Beach. California

1978 1987 Everson Museum of Art. Syracuse. New York Object Poems. Henry Art Gallery. University of Washington. Seattle 1980 Steirischer Herbst '87, Graz, Austria University Art Museum. University of California. LAUNCHING A NEW SERIES Berkeley CHECKLIST 1982 OF RECENT WORK BY YOUNGER Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery. University of Nevada. Reno Chartres Bleu, 1986

1986 Video installation: New Langton Arts, San Francisco 27 videotapes. color. 12 minutes AND ESTABLISHED ARTISTS 27 Capp Street Project . San Francisco monitors: 20 inches Chartres Bleu is the first presentation in the Museum's SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS "New Work" series, a program introducing Bay Area 1970 audiences to recent work by both younger and estab- 5 NOVEMBER 1987 1 "New Sound: Sculpture As:, Museum of Conceptual Art. ished artists from this region and elsewh ere. San Francisco Work" is generously supported by Collectors Forum. Chartres Bleu, organized in collaboration with 1972 THROUGH 10 JANUARY 1988 Walker Art Center. Minneapolis. is supported in part San Francisco Performance. Newport Harbor Art Museum. Newport Beach. California by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. the Jerome Foundation, and Collectors Forum. SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM 1973 Bienal de Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo. Brazil 01987 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art OF MODERN ART 1974 The San Francisco Museum of Modern Artis a member-supported. Project 74. Wallraf-Rich artz Museum, Colo gne. privately funded museum receiving major grantsfrom the California Germany Arts Council. the Columbia Foundation. the William G Irwin 1975 Charity Foundation. the Henry Luce Foundation. the National 1975 Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art. Endowment for the Arts. the San Francisco Foundation, and New York Grants for the Artsof the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

Bienal de Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo. Brazil NEW WORK: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS course of a week spent painstakingly photographing the window from an adjacent scaffolding. A single slide of each pane was then transferred to videotape by a technique that systematically mod­ ulated the brightness of the images in order to simulate the On behalf of the Board ofTrustees of the San Francisco Museum luminous pattern of a twenty-four hour day and condense it into of Modern Art. 1t 1s my pleasure to announce the inauguration of twelve video minutes a new series of exh1b1t1ons sponsored with the generous support of Collectors Forum. Called New Work.this program will present At the start of each twelve-minute cycle. the window recent work by both emerging and established artists that has defines itself chiefly in archi:ectural terms as a sectioned Gothic not been given wide attention in the Bay Area. Through approx­ arch With the gradual increase in light. the twenty-seven dark­ imately half a dozen exh1b1t1ons each year we hope top resent a ened grids break into spectacular detail chronicling episodes wide range of work and to give some sense of the diversity that from the early life of Christ. But as the light continues to gain in characterizes the art of our era These exhibitions will not be intensity the iconographic forms begin to exceed legibility. and confined to a particular ga llery: rather. we hope that the artists the window takes a magiC31 turn toward abstraction as the exhibiting in New Work will make use of the special-sometimes fig ures are engulfed by the intense blue light (the "Chartres id1osyncrat1c-quaht1es of our museum's exhibitions spaces. Bleu") emanating from the background. The bare, chapel-like which the one, That the first New Work is Poul Kos: Chartres Bleu is most appro­ space in work is set is illuminated by this light al priate. Though based in San Francisco, Paul Kos has established reinforcing Kos's vision of the piece "first as a window. a light an international reputat on for his video and perfor mance­ source, a way to move about'.' oriented sculpture: Chartres Bleu-a large recreation of a day in Reminiscent of the artist's earlier video installations and the life of a window at Chartres Cathedral-is a tour de force of his gamelike performance pieces, Chartres Bleu is a participatory video sculpture. work which elicits a broad range of perceptual and intellectual

I wish to express my appreciation to Paul Kos for his responses. On the most basic level of viewing. the piece engages a cooperation 1n bringing Chartres Bleu to the museum. and to us in acts of deciphering as host of symbolic figures gradually Graham Beal. Elise S. Haas Chief Curator. for organizing its emerge on screen. Shown through the doubled windows of presentation 1n cooperation with the Walker Art Center, Min­ Chartres's stained glass and Kos's video monitors. these scenes neapolis. I am especially grateful for the generous support of engender some of the original awe experienced by visitors to the Collectors Forum, whose willingness to support the new and cathedral. Chartres Bleu trarscends mere simulation however, the unknown has made it possible to embark upon an exciting for the work creates an authentic experience between the ances­ exhibition program. tral form and the modern medium. The artist has fash oned an ideal fit between two technologies in which light enters from John R Lane behind tocreate images on t1e surface of a glass plane Director While Chartres Bleu is grounded in the technical sim1lari­ t1es of the two media it marries. it is equally concerned with their aesthetic differences. The Gothic window exemplifies a form of PAUL KOS: CHARTRES BLEU representation that transcends itss ubject in pursuit of a spiritual reality, while the video image is, on its most basic le ve l . aimed squarely at creating a documentary reality. It is in this cross-play of purposes that Kos subtly brings about a rapprochement of the Over the past twenty years. Paul Kos has produced a body of two aesthetics as he highlights the power of the came ra to l notable work in scu pture. performance, and video for its formal liberate its sub ject from the worldly constraints of time and beauty and conceptual strength. and for its unique inflection of space and to bear away our beliefs in this act of retrieval. contemporary forms with classical concerns. Chartres Bleu, an extraordinary multi channel video "sculpture:· elegantly re­ In the tension between realism and abstraction. light and states Kos's concerns as 1. brings together media separated by dark, old and new. the window and its double, Chartres Bleu nearly eight centuries in order to explore tl'e nature of visual ac hieves an elegant synthe�is of formal design and historical representation. perspective. But as important. it is a visionary attempt to reclaim for our time the art1st1c e:>