Lawrence Weiner, in his words

Last night, I attended a discussion with Lawrence Weiner at the Phoenix Art Museum. It was great. Weiner was articulate, personable and extremely intelligent—about his own art and art in general. Listening to him makes work that might otherwise seem off-putting to the average museum visitor, meaningful and relevant. For those that ever have the chance, I highly recommend hearing him speak, and for those that don't, or who just can't wait, I offer the following review of, and recommendation for, his book of writings and interviews, which I first wrote for Hol's old newsletter back in April of 2008.

*  *  * 

For those new to Weiner, but serious about readings on contemporary art, there could be no better entree into his work than Having Been Said: Writings & Interviews of Lawrence Weiner 1968-2003, edited by Gerti Fietzek and Gregor Stemmrich (2004, Hatje Cantz, $60, 9783775791946).

Lawrence Weiner's work is most often presented as words and phrases written, painted, or otherwise directly affixed to gallery walls. As a byproduct of this presentation mode and because of a particular gallery relationship early in his career, Weiner is most often associated with the Conceptual Art movement, which started in the U.S. in the late 1960s. However, encompassing 35-years of the artist's writing and interviews, Having Been Said goes far to demonstrate Weiner's work as actually quite material. In fact, Weiner most often refers to himself as a sculptor. 

It is perhaps a testament to the validity of this position or just to the bullheaded dedication with which Weiner explains and elaborates it, that he could convince viewers that work he himself declares need not even be built is, in essence, material. His work, he states, deals with objects and objects' relations to other objects and to humans. He simply chooses language to present those sculptural relations to the public, rather than choosing a more traditional material like marble or bronze.

"Language is a more general material, not a better one..." says Weiner, it's a medium that avoids specificities. So in Weiner's work, "blue" is the same for everyone, it's just "blue" and however you might picture it in your head after having read it from the wall. But, paint the color blue on a canvas and suddenly one person's blue is another's navy, is another's royal, is another's indigo... they're all looking at the same work, but defining what they see rather differently.

Surprisingly little of the book gets down to discussion of specific works by Weiner that we might point to in example of his materiality, but in one interview from 1980, Weiner does give a brief description of his piece TAKEN TO A POINT OF TOLERANCE. Though not typical of the book itself, the excerpt works to shed some light on his process, its inherent materiality, and the effect of his choice to work with language as a medium:

"Interviewer: TAKEN TO A POINT OF TOLERANCE

"Weiner: That's the strain point that you get with all materials. I became fascinated personally with metal fatigue. Metal fatigue is an extremely material relationship between the usage of metal, the existence of metal... and when you can bring a piece of metal to a point of tolerance, you are, in effect, building any sculpture that's involved with tensions and various kinds of dynamics of tension... [My works are] not anything other than what I see and what seems to be the crux of the matter of the existence of various sculptures. They are the point. I would prefer to spend my life dealing with the point than dealing with the embellishment.

"Interviewer: Although you say they relate to objects and to sculptures, they could quite clearly relate to other spheres of human activity.

"Weiner: Oh, but that's the nice thing about art, and that's the nice thing about using language..."

*  *  * 

Language and materiality are but the first, most fundamental aspects of Weiner's work that this collection offers for exploration. Many readers will find avenues into Weiner's oeuvre to suit their own interests: His progressive approach to working in the public domain; examinations of his films, his posters, or his books; or his belief in, and hope for, an American socialism. 

Whether a reader picks out one or all of these to examine; whether they read the whole book cover-to-cover or only get through the first half before being drawn away to examine the work first hand; all responses and interests are welcomed, for in the end, Having Been Said does what every great art book should do, it illuminates our experience of art, without attempting to replace it.