Lawrence Weiner was born in 1942 in New York and passed away there in December 2021.
Lawrence Weiner is a central and fascinating figure in the art of the past sixty years. He has contributed to reshaping our very understanding of art—its materiality, situation, distribution, and reception.
Although his practice encompassed sculpture, performance, artist’s book, sound, film, and other media, he is mostly known for his sculptural use of language and typography, contributing decisively—but unwillingly—to what is called “Conceptual Art.” Since the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner has presented his distinctive words and signs on a large variety of contexts, be it the wall of an art gallery, the page of a book, or the facade of a building. These textual fragments and aphorisms engage viewers with existential questions about their relationship to time and space, language and culture, and the function of art. As the artist put it: “All art is just signposts along the way to understanding your relationship to the world.”
His works form part of the collections of numerous institutions worldwide and have been exhibited “in so many countries, that his résumé reads more like an atlas than a list of works” (The New York Times).
Lawrence Weiner is represented by Dvir Gallery (Brussels / Tel Aviv), Lisson Gallery (London, New York, Shanghai), Marian Goodman Gallery (New York, Paris, London), Taro Nasu Gallery (Tokyo), Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery (London, Paris, Salzburg, Seoul), and Micheline Szwajcer Gallery (Antwerp).
