Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Kay Rosen uses words and letters as a means of examining the ways in which language structures knowledge, particularly, in terms of awareness of self and place. Painting is her primary medium; she has created modestly sized canvases, as well as expansive wall works and large, site-specific outdoor projects comprised exclusively of paint, color, and language. Between a Rock and a Hard Place depicts the word “KANDAHAR” in large, gray letters. On either side of KANDAHAR, two partial letters, cropped by the left and right edges, are visible: C on the left and D on the right. The title, however, illuminates what is missing. Kandahar is the name of a province in Afghanistan, as well as of the country’s second largest city. It is significant that the name of one of the world’s most conflicted terrains is contained within one of the most common aphorisms used to describe conflict.