Paul Kos and Julien Berthier at Galerie Vallois

Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois in Paris presents a dual exhibition featuring Paul Kos and Julien Berthier, from November 23, 2012 to January 19, 2013. Kos, a conceptual artist from the San Francisco scene of the 1970s and co-founder of MOCA with Tom Marioni, shows works that blend conceptualism with European influences like Arte Povera and Joseph Beuys. His installation "I saw the light" is a rebus: a suspended saw swings before a lit bulb, its shadow passing over a drawn 'i'. Other works include "Lot's wife" (1969), a salt sculpture placed among cows in Napa Valley, and videos like "Lightening" (1971) where a woman describes lightning never striking when she looks. Kos was shown by Leo Castelli and participated in the São Paulo Biennial (1973) and Paris Biennale (1977). His later series, inspired by the 1995 exhibition "Pièce meublée" at Jousse-Seguin, includes a broom balancing a hanger with a bell and candle, a fake cheese wheel with a train, and photos of nude women with chair-mark tattoos. Berthier, a former student of Kos at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998, contributes "A lost", a piece where he climbed a highway bridge to cut the words "A lost" from an alarm system ad reading "Make thievery a lost art". The photograph and the cut piece are displayed together. Berthier's work continues his exploration of public space and reality.