Nuove acquisizioni: i Cathexis di Kosuth

We recently acquired two works by Joseph Kosuth from the "Cathexis" series. The word "Cathexis" derives from ancient Greek and meant a stable or controlled state of mind. Philosophy also referred to the term "Cathexis" as a stable disposition of the soul or body.

The concept was taken up by Freud to indicate an "investment" of psychic energy in a person, an idea, or an object, that is when mental energy is retained by an object or something.

Kosuth used the concept to emphasize that art is also about seeing what lies behind an object, that is, the idea from which it arises and its meaning, that is, how much mental energy the artist expends to create a work and how much mental energy the viewer expends to be fascinated by it, beyond the aesthetics of the representation or its value.

Kosuth conceived the idea for Cathexis in 1981 as a reaction to the critical push for a return to figurative art. These works share a common characteristic: their large size and the inverted representation of the images. All the works are from 1981-1982 and are numbered from 1 to 48 according to the American numbering system, i.e., #12, #25, etc.

The ones we have just acquired are #33 and #34.

Attached are images of the two works and the catalogs in which they are published.