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InterviewDecember 12, 2007Lawrence Weiner 
One of the founders of the conceptual art movement in the '60s, Lawrence Weiner is a sculptor who uses language to reference materials and actions. Presented on gallery walls, building facades, objects, posters, and in books, Weiner's texts convey ideas that can be realized in real space or simply imagined. The subject of a traveling retrospective currently on view at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, Weiner recently responded to Artkrush editor Paul Laster's questions via email. AK: What was the point of departure for the conceptual art that you and others created in the '60s? LW: THE NEED FOR A RE-EVALUATION OF THE ROLE & THE FORM OF ART WITHIN SOCIETY. AK: When did you start using words to represent physical works of art, and what inspired that action? LW: THE LATE '60S. LANGUAGE CAN REPRESENT MATERIAL WITHOUT EXPLICIT FORM; IT COULD — RATHER THAN SHOULD — BE. AK: What was the initial public response to your text-art wall works? LW: THE PUBLIC READ IT. AK: Do you consider these works to be paintings, drawings, or sculptures? LW: SCULPTURE, I.E., LANGUAGE & THE MATERIALS REFERRED TO. AK: Does it matter if the work is actually executed, as with your 1968 piece TWO MINUTES OF SPRAY PAINT DIRECTLY PAINTED UPON THE FLOOR FROM A STANDARD AEROSOL SPRAY CAN, or can it exist abstractly as an idea to be imagined? LW: AS THE WORK ONLY UTILIZES ACCESSIBLE MATERIALS, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. AK: What roles have multiples, such as posters and artists' books, played in the communication of your practice? LW: AS A MEANS OF PLACING THE WORK IN THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF A FORMAL CONTEXT. AK: What's your favorite font? AK: Do your pieces translate well into other languages, or are they best understood in your native English? LW: THE WORK IS DESIGNED TO BE TRANSLATED & THEREFORE CAPABLE OF MOVING FROM CULTURE TO CULTURE. AK: What does a collector receive when acquiring one of your works? LW: THE WORK. AK: Are the wall works unique? LW: UNIQUE IN THEIR MEANING. AK: Do you have a preference for presenting work in either a gallery exhibition or an outdoor public space? LW: NO. AK: Critics have called the Whitney Museum retrospective crowded, as your pieces are not often viewed in such close proximity with one another. However, the overall installation reads like a three-dimensional catalogue of your oeuvre. How did you conceive the show, and what is your favorite aspect of it? LW: IT IS A SELECTION BY THE CURATORS TO REFLECT WHAT AN ARTIST FUNCTIONING CAN PRESENT TO THE WORLD AFTER A TIME. AK: The audio tour for the retrospective is also unique because it doesn't provide the usual explanations of the works in the show — rather, it provides a soundtrack for viewing it. What is this audio compilation, and what do you hope it conveys to viewers? LW: IT IS A REMIX OF RECORDINGS THAT I HAVE MADE WITH MUSICIANS OVER TIME — AN AMBIENT SOUNDTRACK. AK: Your recent work has embellishments that make the use of language more decorative. Do you see that as an embrace of the baroque? LW: I DO NOT FIND IT DECORATIVE. IT IS IN RELATION TO WHERE IT FINDS ITSELF. IT IS A FORM OF PRESENTATION. AK: There's a public work of yours on 486 Greenwich Street, an old building in New York's West Village, that reads WATER SPILLED FROM SOURCE TO USE. It seems to have been there for as long as I have lived in New York, which is some 30 years. Are there other works like this, which passersby stumble upon without knowledge of who the artist/author might be? Where should we look? LW: MOST PLACES. THE WORK IS IN PUBLIC CONTEXTS IN APPROXIMATELY 100 LOCATIONS FROM SEOUL TO VIENNA TO MINNEAPOLIS TO LOS ANGELES. IT LIVES IN CONTEXT. AS FAS AS THE EYE CAN SEE is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through February 10 and travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles on April 13. The museums have jointly published an exhibition catalogue with Yale University Press. Hatje Cantz Publishers released HAVING BEEN SAID, a comprehensive book on Weiner's work, in 2004. |
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