Joseph Kosuth (b 1945, USA) is one of the pioneers of Conceptual art and installation art, initiating language based works and appropriation strategies in the 1960s. His work has consistently explored the production and role of language and meaning within art. His more than fifty year inquiry into the relation of language to art has taken the form of installations, museum exhibitions, public commissions and publications throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia, including seven Documenta(s) and 14 Venice Biennale(s), one of which was presented in the Hungarian Pavilion (1993).
Awards include the Brandeis Award, 1990, Frederick Wiseman Award, 1991, the Menzione d'Onore at the Venice Biennale, 1993, and the Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government in 1993. In June 1999, a 3.00 franc postage stamp was issued by the French Government in honor of his work in Figeac. In February 2001, he received the Laura Honoris Causa, doctorate in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Bologna. In October 2003 he received the Austrian Republic’s highest honour for accomplishments in science and culture, the Decoration of Honour in Gold for services to the Republic of Austria. In 2012 Kosuth received la classe des Arts de l’Académie Royale from the Académie Royale Sciences des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts of Belgium. In 2015 the Instituto Superior de Arte, at the University of Havana, awarded him an Honoris Causa doctorate, presented during the 12th Havana Art Biennial where he exhibited an extensive installation at the Biblioteca Nacional.
