Biography

Born in New York in 1942, Lawrence Weiner played a pivotal role in the development of Conceptual art in the United States in the 1960s, questioning traditional notions of art and moving away from the art object in favor of a practice based in ideas and actions. Weiner's primary medium is language, yet his artworks are not simply the texts themselves, but rather the content or idea he refers to in his words. His work exists in multiple forms: as written language, as speech, or as a physical manifestation of the content described by the language. This democratic approach to art-making reveals a social ambition. Weiner is interested in art's "use factor," its accessibility, and how it relates to the people who experience it.

Weiner created his first book Statements in 1968, a small 64-page paperback with texts describing projects. Published by The Louis Kellner Foundation and Seth Siegelaub, "Statements" is considered one of the seminal conceptual artist's books of the era. He was a contributor to the famous Xeroxbook also published by Seth Siegelaub in 1968. Weiner's composed texts describe process, structure, and material, and though Weiner 's work is almost exclusively language-based, he regards his practice as sculpture, citing the elements described in the texts as his materials.

Links

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/1127
http://www.lissongallery.com/artists/lawrence-weiner
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=6288
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Weiner