Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942 – December 2, 2021) was an artist born and raised in New York City. One of the central figures in the formation of Conceptual Art in the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner explored the potentials of language as a sculptural medium. For him language could be presented in any format able to discourse with typical art subjects such as: language installed on a wall, printed as text in a book or catalog, spoken or performed in a film, spoken aloud in conversation, simply remembered, et cetera; as Lawrence explains in 1970:
Weiner divided his time between his studio practice in New York City and his boat, The 'Joma' in Amsterdam. He believed in the importance of making his work non-metaphorical. His goal was to give his viewers the opportunity to use the work towards their own ends. He attempted to make work that crosses cultural boundaries and defines cultural distinctions while the work is frequently translated to suit the idea of place anywhere in world. He participated in public and private projects in the new and old world maintaining that:
Lawrence Weiner was born premature in Manhattan, to Toba Horowitz and Harold Weiner. He grew up in The Bronx, where his parents owned a candy store. In 1958, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School early at 16, and went on to study philosophy and literature at Hunter College for less than a year. He traveled throughout Mexico, America, and Canada before eventually returning to New York City in the mid-sixties.
Before he began to use language as a sculptural medium, Weiner produced two distinct series of paintings in the 1960s which he exhibited with Seth Siegelaub: Propellor Paintings (1964-1966) and Removal Paintings (1966-1968). These painting series were concerned with “idea of painting rather than a painting”, but are still inherently bound to the physical constraints of a specific object, a paradoxical issue. Weiner’s sculpture STAPLES, STAKES, TWINE, TURF produced for the outdoor group exhibition "Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner" at Windham College in 1968 instigated a seminal revision of Weiner’s work. The sculpture was destroyed by the group to which the work was addressed—the students—as it was an imposition on their space. Alice Zimmerman Weiner recounts that the “work had trespassed a boundary that Weiner had not been aware of and prompted him “to reflect on the implications of imposing structures on an unknown public”. Weiner later declared that:
This incident prompted Weiner to realize that an artwork need not impose on physical space at all and Weiner began to utilize language as a primary material—the work “had become a manifestation of ‘language + the materials referred to’”. Weiner asserted that by utilizing language, “there is no edge that the picture drops over or drops off. You are dealing with something completely infinite.”. Joseph Kosuth stated that Weiner “changed his notion of ‘place’… from the context of the canvas (which could only be specific) to a context which was ‘general’, yet all the while continuing his concern with specific materials and processes.”.
From 1968 onwards, Weiner’s work operated under the conditions dictated by the "Declaration of Intent", first presented in the magazine Art News in the fall of 1968 and in the "January 5–31, 1969" exhibition catalog. The "Declaration of Intent" often accompanies a presentation of Weiner's work:
The first condition recalls the traditional relationship between the artist and the artwork. The second condition permits the work to be ‘fabricated’ by someone other than the artist. Finally, the work does not need to be acted upon at all, it can simply exist as language or an idea to function as art. Weiner uses the general term ‘receiver’ for any individual, collector, gallery, or museum who accepted the responsibility of ownership under these conditions. Weiner utilized this tripartite declaration as the framework for all of his work until his death in 2021.
Weiner has extensively used the format of the artist book to disseminate his work. The format is integral to his practice. In 1976, Weiner asserted:
Weiner's first body of work produced using language was the solo-exhibition "Statements", an artist's book published in December 1968 by The Louis Kellner Foundation and Seth Siegelaub. Statements consists of twenty-four works, condensed linguistic statements that describe sculptural processes and common materials of production. In an interview with Benjamin Buchloh, Weiner asserted that the work in Statements is “decidedly non-macho, but [turns] out to be the tough guy in the bar.”.
A comprehensive retrospective of Weiner's career was organized by Ann Goldstein and Donna De Salvo at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 2007–2008. Major solo exhibitions of the artist's work have been hosted at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1988/89), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (1990), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1991), Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1991), Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (1991/92), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1992), The Arnhem (Sonsbeek) The Netherlands (1993) Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1994), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1994), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1995), Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (2000), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City (2004), Tate Gallery in London (2006), The Jewish Museum, NY (2012), Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016), and the Nivola Museum, Orani, Italy (2019).
He participated in Documenta V (1972), VI (1977), VII (1982) and XXIII (2012). He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1972, 1984, 2003, and 2013.
Among his many honors were National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1976 and 1983), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994), Wolfgang Hahn Prize (1995), a Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual Art (1999), An Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Graduate Center, City University of New York City, (2013), the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, Zurich, Switzerland (2015), and the Aspen Award for Art (2017). He posthumously won the Oskar-Kokoschka-Prize in Vienna (2022).
On the occasion of the Drawing Center's 2012 Spring Gala, where Weiner was being honored for his contributions to contemporary art, fellow artist Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams created a three-minute tribute in the form of a parody of Bob Dylan's legendary music video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" with placards featuring Weiner text pieces like "stars don't stand still in the sky" and "water in milk exists."
Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Vienna (2022); Tokyo TDC (Type Directors Club) Annual Awards, Book Design Prize (2020); Bomb Magazine Anniversary Gala Hornoree (2020); Artist X Artist Hirshhorn Museum Gala Honoree (2019); SCAD deFINE ART Honoree, Savannah, Georgia (2019); Free Arts Honoree, New York (2018); Wolf Foundation Prize, Jerusalem (2017); Aspen Art Museum Award for Art (2017); The Kitchen Honoree, New York (2017); D.U.C. / Distribution to Underserved Communities Library Program) Honoree (2017); Roswitha Haftmann Prize, Kunsthaus Zurich (2015); Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, The Graduate Center City University of New York (2013); The Drawing Center Spring Gala Honoree, New York (2012); Bronx Museum of the Arts Honoree, New York City (2011); Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual (1999); Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Ludwig Museum, Köln (1995); John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1994); Arthur Köpcke Prize, Arthur Köpcke Memorial Fund, Copenhagen (1991); Singer Prize, Singer Museum, Laren, The Netherlands (1988); NEA Fellowship (1983); Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam & the State Film Board of the Netherlands (1982); NEA Fellowship (1976); 72nd American Exhibition, The Art Institute of Chicago (1976); DAAD, Berlin (1975-1976)
Weiner produced film and video works throughout his entire life. It is both a framework for his existing work to operate within and a work in its own right. Weiner distinguished between 'film' and 'video', but produced both in parallel; As Dieter Schwartz writes in SHOW (&) TELL: The Films & Videos of Lawrence Weiner, "The ease of production of the video allows for real time to be rapidly converted to edited, cinematic time, whereas film can only be viewed after a complicated processing stage, which automatically makes the recorded events more distant.".
Weiner and his wife Alice Zimmerman Weiner lived on Bleecker Street for over thirty years before moving to another residence and studio in the West Village, in what was once an old laundromat built in 1910, transformed into a five-level town house designed by the firm LOT-EK in 2008.
Weiner died on December 2, 2021, in Manhattan, at the age of 79.
HAVING BEEN SAID: Writings & Interviews of Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner: Books 1968—1989
SHOW (&) TELL: The Films and Video of Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner: AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE