Photo: Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art
propose that Lawrence Weiner’s retrospective entitled ‘AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE’, currently at the Whitney Museum and traveling to MOCA Los Angeles, will undoubtedly mean different things to different people. Co-curated by Donna De Salvo and Ann Goldstein, it has been applauded for being overdue, which it is, and cautioned for its over-crowding on one floor of the Whitney, which it is. That being said, the show feels unexpectedly heroic in these giddy, bloated times. Who knew?
Weiner is a materialist, who pushes around displays of language as a preface to (maybe) pushing around the materials themselves. He is not a Fluxus-mystic, visual poet, or idea artist. The appearance of his art – words, color, and some symbols, is comprehensible and carries an immediate recognition factor. Acceptance of his practice (and Weiner was the first artist I ever was aware of who referred to himself as a ‘practitioner’ in an interview with Willoughby Sharp, Avalanche, Spring ’72) remains controversial to those audience members who require the comforting presence of the physical, or handmade art object . And those are many.
Born in 1942 and on the road until the early 60’s, Weiner, a public school educated New Yorker, appeared less interested in Pop Art, and more in the party-crashing systemic reasoning that led out of Frank Stella’s ‘black’ paintings. I suspect that Weiner, whose first documented work was of a planned explosion (1960), had a penchant for ‘removing’ (Stella’s canvases notched corners and absent centers) than for ‘adding’ (beatnik/pop assemblage). Increasingly dubious with filling in shapes on canvas, the artist formed a militant indifference to the presentation of his art. In a group of paintings from 1965, shown at the Whitney for the first time together (at least for me), Weiner shifted responsibility for the paintings scale, shape, and color to whoever commissioned/purchased a work. The pieces themselves are not startling and look of their time, like ‘do-it-yourself’ versions of Robert Mangold’s later paintings. By 1968, Weiner dispenses altogether with the making of things, intersecting with Andy Warhol’s own ambivalence, feigned or otherwise, in his decision-making process. Weiner appreciated Warhol; both artists were socially ubiquitous and both cast attractive members of their milieu in their films.
Photo: Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art
The inclusion of this early work may be revelatory for younger artists who may only know Weiner as the blue-chip ‘words on the wall guy’. A subversive tone of ritualized ‘vandalism by consent’ can be construed from pieces where paint is sprayed, liquids are thrown, and carpet is snipped away. Weiner’s publication ‘STATEMENTS’(1968), a collection of materials and actions, was followed by the appearance of a set of conditional terms established by the artist that may read like a mantra to those who have followed his work.
1. THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK
2. THE WORK MAY BE FABRICATED
3. THE WORK NEED NOT BE BUILT
EACH BEING EQUAL AND CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST THE DECISION AS TO CONDITION RESTS WITH THE RECEIVER UPON THE OCCASION OF RECEIVERSHIP
Thus applied, ’BROKEN OFF’ (1971), or ’OVER THE WALL & IN FRONT OF THE NEXT’ (1989), come into being only if their recipient chooses to do so. The core of Weiner’s art is the maintained reference to the above transaction, and in its negotiation; exacting a higher than usual degree of commitment from those seeking possession of a work. Subsequent exhibitions often functioned like mini-advertising campaigns for a single, or grouping of, statements. It is worth recalling that a large, international network of artists in the late 60’s embarked on a romance with both ‘information’ and its transmission. While ad agencies boomed, no one artist, or gallery, got rich as a result of this lofty embrace with the new age of media. Art categorized as ‘conceptual’ (a term Weiner has sidestepped as Picasso did ‘surrealist’) could exist through a publication, a postcard, or even a phone call (‘Art By Telephone’, 1969). Ed Ruscha, a Weiner collaborator, typified the pervading attitude in his suggesting that examination of any of his important books constituted a ‘show’.
Poets had long regarded the page as a ‘site’, and I cannot believe that Weiner was the first artist to print words directly on a wall in an art context, but his relocation of text (and later of other symbols) off the page and into the gallery in the form of painted signage, separated him from the pack of conceptual figures already relegated to the bookshelf. A Johnsian art supply store stencil and spray paint renders ‘A BIT OF MATTER AND A LITTLE BIT MORE’ onto a modest area of wall. Weiner would try out several lettering styles before settling on the familiar current version, which reads as both instructional and vaguely Euro. Over the years, brackets, boxes, arrows, and other marginalia lent an almost loony gaiety to some of the proceedings. His loyalty to the manual application of lettering is intriguing when considering the range of media currently available, as utilized by artists like Jenny Holzer or Barbara Kruger – both of whom owe some debt to Weiner. When sharing a single wall, as they do at the Whitney, Weiner’s photogenic word structures look festive in comparison to the puritanical house style codified by the Art and Language publications, or by Ursula Meyer’s seminal book, ‘Conceptual Art’ (1972).
If ‘the materials referred to’ sounds straightforward in a work like ‘A CUP OF SEA WATER POURED UPON THE FLOOR’ (1969), how does a piece like ‘OUT OF THE BLUE’ (1999) work? How do the rigorous conditions apply? Where out? What blue? There is a maniacal complexity to wording used in so general a manner, as in ‘ALL OF THE ABOVE’ (2006). Is the artist, as the young folks used to say, playing games with our heads? Or is he bending his own rules from the inside out? Absolutely. I have seen ‘AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE’ (1988) in situ overlooking Central Park, and I was stopped in my tracks; but the same work could also be suitable for exhibition in the prison system, or even at the Whitney. The artist’s language never hectors or accuses, nor does it seemed pulled out of the air. Weiner scholars can better negotiate the numerous relationships between individual works and their contexts, particularly site specific commissions.
Embedded within this retrospective are several other complete shows, collections of posters and multiples, and screenings of his films and videos at Anthology Film Archives. Weiner’s output of prints, publications, objects, recordings, even tattoos, is extensive – an archival challenge to the artist, his studio, and the institution. Visually and conceptually cohesive, they are not simply brand merchandise or souvenir bi-products. The assignment of words to object, be it a sailor’s cap or a knife (and to several works produced in collaboration with Onestar Press) is deeply considered and is never as casual as it initially appears. Biographical details about Weiner’s early life are scant, but I was interested to learn that his father owned a small store in the Bronx. The artist himself has long been a ‘cottage industry’, perhaps surviving through lean times through the sale of affordable miscellanies. Along with the rebus-like constructivism of his preparatory studies, are several storyboards for films which share resemblance to Jean Luc Godard’s collages and ephemera. A smart curator, with saint-like patience, should do a show with both individuals and credit me.
Unwilling to take his assigned seat in the waiting room of art history, Weiner’s long association with what once was, quaintly, referred to as the ‘gallery system’ is a testimony to his tenacity and to the loyalty to his supporters, mainly in Europe. His CV, comprised of now-mythic galleries, contexts, exhibitions, art dealers, curators, collaborators, and cultural facilitators is as complete as any historical overview. Notably absent are the safe harbors of academia, suggesting a life in the arts few could currently sustain.
We leave the Whitney with a few things. Specifically, Weiner’s ultimate concern with ‘stuff’ – making it/not making it, moving it around, adding, and subtracting from it, etc. Richard Serra’s recent MOMA retro and ‘AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE’ inform each other in different ways. Serra’s 1967-8 ‘Verb List’ (‘to roll, of nature, to pair’ etc.) is one of many overlaps between artists from a period now regarded, as mentioned earlier, heroic. Weiner’s show is as physically empty as Serra’s was full.
One of my favorite works of Weiner’s is an early one – ‘A WALL CRATERED BY A SINGLE SHOTGUN BLAST’ (1968). It was ‘executed’ for the show, the smattering of holes in the museums wall simultaneously adding and subtracting materials. I hope it was documented. And it’s too bad some object, like the pickled Shark residing a few blocks uptown at the Met, hadn’t gotten in the way. Lawrence Weiner, I believe, likes water.
Tim Maul, New York
Check the following books by Lawrence Weiner and Tim Maul at onestar press
Lawrence WeinerDeep blue sky / Light blue sky 2Published June 2007
Tim MaulStudio VisitPublished June 2000
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