Background
Lawrence Weiner was born on February 10, 1942 in Bronx, New York, United States. He is the son of a candy-store owner.
New York, United States
Lawrence Weiner graduatred from the Stuyvesant High School in 1958.
Manhattan, New York, United States
Lawrence Weiner dropped out the Hunter College during his first year.
Lawrence Weiner was born on February 10, 1942 in Bronx, New York, United States. He is the son of a candy-store owner.
Lawrence Weiner graduatred from the Stuyvesant High School in 1958. He dropped out of Hunter College during his first year traveled throughout North America, taking on a series of jobs: an oil tanker, on docks, and unloading railroad cars.
Lawrence Weiner traveled throughout North America before returning to New York, where he exhibited at Seth Siegelaub Contemporary Art in 1964 and 1965. Weiner’s early work included experiments with systematic approaches to shaped canvases and later, featured squares cut out of carpeting or walls.
In 1968, for an out-of-state exhibition organized by Siegelaub that also included works by Carl Andre and Robert Barry, Weiner installed what he saw as an unobtrusive work titled Hay, Mesh, String in a courtyard between two buildings at Windham College in Vermont. He created his first artist’s book, Statements, a 64-page offset publication, in 1968 and has carried this focus and technique throughout the decades.
Since the early 1970s, wall installations have been Weiner's primary medium, and he has shown at the Leo Castelli gallery. Nevertheless, Weiner works in a wide variety of media, including video, film, books, sound art using audio tape, sculpture, performance art, installation art, and graphic art.
In 2000 the Public Art Fund in New York City commissioned Weiner to create manhole covers in collaboration with Con Edison and to integrate them into the landscape of Lower Manhattan. He had 19 covers manufactured with the phrase “In Direct Line with Another & the Next” cast on them, a reference to the city’s grid.
In 2007, he participated at the symposium "Personal Structures Time-Space-Existence" a project which was initiated by the artist Rene Rietmeyer. In 2008 an excerpt from his opera with composer Peter Gordon – The Society Architect Ponders the Golden Gate Bridge – was issued on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music (Bridge Records) produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike. In 2009 he participated in the art project Find Me, by Gema Alava, in company of artists Robert Ryman, Merrill Wagner and Paul Kos.
A Stake Set
1969Earth to Earth Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust
1970To See and Be Seen
1972Untitled
1991Niter & Brimstone Kept Apart
1993Wvave After Wave
2002A Mirror Scratched...
2004Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole
2005En Route: At Another Time
2005En Route: In Another Court
2005En Route: On Another Plane
2005En Route: To Another Stage
2005En Route: Via Another Route
2005Lo & Behold
2006Steel Pennies That...
2008Motion Enough to Bring About...
2008Shells Used to Build Roads...
2008A Cairn Dispersed...
2008A Wall Built...
2008Le sable fin...
2008Pushed Forward...
2009Taken From the Wind...
2009Every Which Way + Up
2010
Quotations:
"The only art I'm interested in is the art I don't understand right away. If you understand it right away it really has no use except as nostalgia."
"Skills come with age, but wisdom, I doubt it very, very much."
"Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it."
"I'm keeping everything on a human level, but essentially everything in our lives has to be on a human level. Any specification of something by art history doesn't make any sense. The point is, if you have a loving, adorable, supportive mother anywhere in the world and you tell her all of your dreams, all of your aspirations, and the reward you would like, and she understands you, then it's not worth doing."
Lawrence Weiner is married Alice.