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Lawrence Weiner

About

A pioneering Conceptual artist of the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner was among the first to dematerialize the object of art into pure language. His elegant yet utilitarian typefaces and striking monochromes—stenciled, painted, inscribed, or otherwise applied to walls and surfaces—inescapably alter their given context. Dedicated to the circulation of ideas and meaning, he composes sculptural propositions as texts that describe process, material, and relations. By translating his studio work into words, Weiner communicates the content of each work without specifying any of its physical qualities, thus rendering the work objective, accessible, and useful for a diverse audience.

Lawrence Weiner was born in 1942 in the Bronx, New York. Weiner has executed large-scale public commissions in cities including Vancouver, Vienna, Eindhoven, and New York. Recent major exhibitions include “Nach Alles/After All,” Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2000); “Bent and Broken Shafts of Light,” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2000); “Covered by Clouds,” Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2004); “Lawrence Weiner: Films & Videos,” Tate Gallery, London (2006); “As Far As The Eye Can See,” Whitney Museum of Art, New York (2007, traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles); K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2009); “Lawrence Weiner: Written on the Wind,” Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); “Within a Realm of Distance,” Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire (2015); and “WHEREWITHAL,” Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016).

Weiner currently lives and works in New York and Amsterdam.

Fairs, Events & Announcements

The FLAG Art Foundation: 2008–2018 (New York: The FLAG Art Foundation; New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2018)

Talk and Book Signing

Lawrence Weiner
Glenn Fuhrman

Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 6–7pm
Gagosian Shop, New York

Gagosian Shop is pleased to present a conversation between Glenn Fuhrman, founder of the FLAG Art Foundation, and artist Lawrence Weiner, moderated by Sarah Douglas, editor in chief of ARTnews, on the occasion of the release of The FLAG Art Foundation: 2008–2018. The talk will be followed by a book signing with Glenn Fuhrman. To attend the event, RSVP to flagshoprsvp@gagosian.com.

Download the full press release (PDF)

The FLAG Art Foundation: 2008–2018 (New York: The FLAG Art Foundation; New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2018)

Thomas Houseago, Rainbow I (Psychedelic), 2017

Auction

2017 Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation Gala Auction

Live auction: July 26
Online preview: July 27–August 9
Online bidding: August 10–23
www.2017ldfauction.org

The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is dedicated to protecting the world’s last wild places. Since 2008 it has supported over 200 environmental projects across all five oceans and in over fifty countries. This auction helps make it possible for the Foundation to continue supporting pioneering individuals and organizations on the front lines of environmental conservation and climate advocacy, and will feature donated artworks by Urs Fischer, Frank Gehry, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, Jeff Koons, Pablo Picasso, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, Rudolf Stingel, Lawrence Weiner, and Jonas Wood.

Thomas Houseago, Rainbow I (Psychedelic), 2017

Museum Exhibitions

Lawrence Weiner’s aerial banner Spaccato — Split (2020) in flight along the Italian coast. Artwork © Lawrence Weiner. Photo: Claudia de Nicolò

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Lawrence Weiner
TRACCE / TRACES

August 16–25, 2020
MACRO–Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome
www.museomacro.it

Lawrence Weiner’s TRACCE / TRACES eschews conventional space and instead exhorts viewers to look skyward at a series of aerial banners along the Italian coast, from Ladispoli to Anzio. The exhibition recalls the 1970 book of the same title edited by Germano Celant for Galleria Sperone. That volume focused on translation; this project, envisioned by Weiner shortly after Celant’s death, is a tribute to the late Italian curator. Each of the ten banners, which change daily, displays a single word corresponding to the past participle of a verb that suggests an action that could have happened in the past, or that might occur in the future. Isolated and removed from any syntactic context, the words lend themselves to open interpretation.

Lawrence Weiner’s aerial banner Spaccato — Split (2020) in flight along the Italian coast. Artwork © Lawrence Weiner. Photo: Claudia de Nicolò

Works from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s collection in storage. Artwork, clockwise from top left: Jean Dubuffet, Martin Barré, and Wifredo Lam © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; Willem de Kooning © 2020 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; David Hammons © David Hammons; Paul Wonner © Estate of Paul Wonner and William Theophilius Brown, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Cecilia Vicuña © Cecilia Vicuña; Maria Helena Vieira da Silva © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: David M. Heald

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Artistic License
Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection

May 24, 2019–January 12, 2020
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
www.guggenheim.org

This exhibition celebrates the institution’s extensive twentieth-century holdings through the eyes of six contemporary artists, all of whom have contributed to shaping the museum’s history with their own pivotal solo shows: Cai Guo-Qiang, Paul Chan, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince, and Carrie Mae Weems. Through collection highlights and rarely seen works from the turn of the century to 1980, this presentation includes nearly three hundred paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and installations selected by the six artists that engage with the cultural discourse of their time. Work by Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, and Lawrence Weiner is included.

Works from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s collection in storage. Artwork, clockwise from top left: Jean Dubuffet, Martin Barré, and Wifredo Lam © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; Willem de Kooning © 2020 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; David Hammons © David Hammons; Paul Wonner © Estate of Paul Wonner and William Theophilius Brown, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Cecilia Vicuña © Cecilia Vicuña; Maria Helena Vieira da Silva © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: David M. Heald

Robert Therrien, No title (table and six chairs), 2003 © Robert Therrien/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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ON BOARD THE SHIPS
AT SEA ARE WE

February 23–May 18, 2019
FLAG Art Foundation, New York
flagartfoundation.org

This exhibition features four works in poetic dialogue: Robert Therrien’s monumental No title (table and six chairs) (2003); Rachel Whiteread’s Untitled (Pair) (1999); and two text-based works by Lawrence Weiner, including a newly created aphorism from which the show takes its title.

Robert Therrien, No title (table and six chairs), 2003 © Robert Therrien/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York