Lawrence Weiner (1942)
United States
Biography :
"Born in 1942 in New York (New York State, United States)
DIED IN NEW YORK IN 2021
Lawrence Weiner is one of the major figures of conceptual art, an artistic movement born in the United States, where it mainly developed, from 1966 to 1972. For a critical interrogation of the means and ends of the works themselves- Likewise, conceptual art uses language as a plastic form and self-reference.
Lawrence Weiner exhibited his work for the first time in 1964 at the Seth Siegelaub Gallery in New York, which the following year became one of the centers of conceptual art with the artists Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth. Lawrence Weiner also participated in emblematic and founding exhibitions of artistic renewal initiated in the 1960s, such as When Attitudes Become Form (Berne, 1969) or documenta 5 (Cassel, 1972).
From the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, Lawrence Weiner was invited by the Nouveau Musée de Villeurbanne, which produced several exhibitions and editions for him.
It was in 1968 that Lawrence Weiner's work experienced a decisive turning point: during an exhibition at the Siegelaub Gallery, he decided to only show Statements, a book compiling a series of sculptural proposals to be created mentally. From then on, all of Lawrence Weiner's proposals are based on this declaration of intention by the artist, published in 1969: “The artist can create the piece; the piece can be made (by someone else); the part may not be made. Each proposal being equal and in agreement with the intention of the artist, the choice of one of the conditions of presentation is up to the receiver upon reception.
The three possibilities of creating the work are thus declared equivalent by the artist who also affirms that the construction of the work intrinsically depends on its reception, and therefore on its context.
From the 1970s, Lawrence Weiner's work consisted mainly of producing wall installations: words painted on the walls (of the exhibition space or of the city) which described potential sculptures. Lawrence Weiner's Statements formulate statements in a neutral language, which will become a remarkable stylistic feature of his work: characteristic typography (stick lettering in capitals) arranged in blocks, with an arbitrary break of lines and a systematic exploration of color, translation and punctuation marks (parentheses, hyphens, slashes). The artist will then name his works Works to affirm their status as sculptures.
Lawrence Weiner also produced more than a hundred artist books which took the place of the catalog for the majority of his exhibitions. These artist's books participated in the complete renewal of the genre which, until then, was generally confined to the illustration by an artist of a poetic text. In the 1960s, the book was seen by the conceptual generation as a work in its own right, capable of being distributed in large numbers, going against the unique and precious character of the work of art.
In addition to his books and interventions in public spaces, Lawrence Weiner has created several multiples, generally everyday objects (umbrella, lighter, T-shirt, badge, etc.) which in turn support his statements and perpetuate them. diffusion."
(Source, website, Contemporary Art Institute of Villeurbanne)