Lawrence Weiner

Overview

Lawrence Weiner born 1942, New York, USA. Lived and worked in New York, USA, 1942-2021 .

Weiner’s texts have appeared in all sorts of places over the last five decades and although he sees himself as a sculptor rather than a conceptualist, he is among the trailblazers of the 1960s to present art as language. He defines his sculptural medium simply as ‘language + the material referred to’ in the sense that language is a material for construction. While Weiner’s works exist only as language and can be displayed in any form, he is closely involved in manifestations, detailing the size of the font, the surface texture and placement of the paint or vinyl letters and indeed often inventing new fonts. Texts appear on walls and windows of galleries and public spaces, as spoken word in audio recordings and video, printed books and posters, cast or carved objects, tattoos, graffiti, lyrics, online, ad infinitum.

Lawrence Weiner’s works are part of numerous international public collections, including Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Dia Beacon, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; British Museum, London; Institute of Chicago; Guggenheim Bilbao and many others. Lawrence Weiner had numerous solo exhibitions. Among others, he exhibited in MACBA (Barcelona), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo (Mexico City). He was part of various group exhibitions, including in the Jewish Museum of Belgium (Brussels), Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin), Lacma (Los Angeles), Shanghai YUZ Museum (Shanghai), MMK (Frankfurt am Main). During his career, Weiner won numerous awards and prizes, e.g.: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the World Prize (2014, Israel).

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