Academic literature on the topic 'Weiner, Lawrence'

Abstract From the 1960s until his death in 2021, Lawrence Weiner developed an art practice operating in language, which he described as being that of a “materialist.” This paper examines the scope of Weiner's career to determine what he could mean by that term—to derive the specific characteristics of his linguistic materialism. Differentiating his work from existing materialist paradigms in poetics and linguistics, this paper argues that the matter of language for Weiner was not reducible to the visual character of the signifier or to the physicality of the referent. Rather than attempt to define language as such, Weiner's materialism set into motion the infinite social uses of words within the “stream of life.”

AbstractThis paper considers whether Kant’s aesthetics withstands the challenge of conceptual art. I begin by looking at two competing views of conceptual art by recent philosophers, before settling on an ‘inclusive’ view of the form: conceptual art includes both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ non-perceptual art (NPA). I then set out two kinds of conceptual complexity that I argue are implicated by all aesthetic judgements of art (as art) on Kant’s view: the concept of art itself, and the idea the work is meant to express (dependent beauty and aesthetic ideas, respectively). I go on to demonstrate the applicability of Kant’s aesthetics to conceptual art by considering two works by Lawrence Weiner, which I take to be a work of work of weak and strong NPA respectively.

Résumé L’article analyse certaines « dérives racistes » survenues au Canada anglais depuis le référendum de 1995. À partir d’une sélection d’articles de la presse anglo-canadienne et à travers l’examen de plusieurs « événements » médiatisés (« affaires » Rakoff, Lawrence Martin, Diane Francis, Gerry Weiner, David Levine), l’analyse indique comment les discours « marginalisés » ont franchi plusieurs « paliers » du racisme (Wieviorka, 1991), en faisant place à une opinion un peu plus sytématique dans le « Reste du Canada » et à une violence verbale suffisamment répétitive pour que le problème ne soit plus jugé secondaire. Dans un cas particulier, celui de « l’affaire Levine », le racisme est même devenu un principe d’action et de mobilisation atteignant plusieurs milieux (journalistique, politique, populaire). Afin d’illustrer à la fois l’extension, la banalisation et la légitimation d’un certain discours raciste (qui fait usage d’arguments universalistes à des fins de délégitimation de « l’Autre »), l’analyse fait ressortir les liens entre discours et théories à la lumière des travaux scientifiques récents qui définissent la structure, les éléments de discours et les mécanismes de production du racisme.

L’article analyse certaines « dérives racistes » survenues au Canada anglais depuis le référendum de 1995. À partir d’une sélection d’articles de la presse anglo-canadienne et à travers l’examen de plusieurs « événements » médiatisés (« affaires » Rakoff, Lawrence Martin, Diane Francis, Gerry Weiner, David Levine), l’analyse indique comment les discours « marginalisés » ont franchi plusieurs « paliers » du racisme (Wieviorka, 1991), en faisant place à une opinion un peu plus systématique dans le « Reste du Canada » et à une violence verbale suffisamment répétitive pour que le problème ne soit plus jugé secondaire. Dans un cas particulier, celui de « l’affaire Levine », le racisme est même devenu un principe d’action et de mobilisation atteignant plusieurs milieux (journalistique, politique, populaire). Afin d’illustrer à la fois l’extension, la banalisation et la légitimation d’un certain discours raciste (qui fait usage d’arguments universalistes à des fins de délégitimation de « l’Autre »), l’analyse fait ressortir les liens entre discours et théories à la lumière des travaux scientifiques récents qui définissent la structure, les éléments de discours et les mécanismes de production du racisme.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of North Texas, 2005.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Accompanied by 4 recitals, recorded Apr. 10, 2000, Apr. 16, 2001, Nov. 3, 2003, and Mar. 28, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-115).

Le travail artistique ne se construit pas sur une question préalable mais sur l’émergence toujours renouvelée de questions imprévisibles.L’oeuvre d’art à l’époque de sa discrétion technique tire bien évidemment son titre du texte de Walter Benjamin L’oeuvre d’art à l’époque de sa reproductibilité technique. Dans son texte, Benjamin essaie d’envisager les conséquences esthétiques et politiques de la reproductibilité technique. Nous essayons (modestement) de reposer la même question à l’heure du numérique.Cette question n’était pas donnée d’emblée. Elle est apparue dans le tressage complexe de la pratique. Dans ce tressage de problématiques apportées par la pratique elle-même, deux temps sont aujourd’hui visibles :- le temps de la reproductibilité technique, du livre d’artiste et du don ;- le temps de la discrétion, du numérique et de la disponibilité.Ces questions sont apparues de proche en proche et jamais selon un plan préétabli. Le travail d’analyse, n’est donc pas la recherche d’une stratégie ou d’un plan préexistant mais le relevé a posteriori d’un territoire découvert par une marche dans un pays inconnu.Ce tressage continu de la pratique et de la théorie est présent dans l’écriture même de la thèse. S’y mêlent à égalité des oeuvres plastiques, des textes littéraires, des articles, des manifestes et des écrits théoriques
Artistic work is not built on a previous question but always renewed by the emergence of unforeseen issues.The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Discretion obviously takes its title from the text of Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In his text, Benjamin tries to consider the aesthetic and political consequences of technical reproducibility. We try (modestly) to ask the same question in the digital age.This question was not immediately given. It appeared in the complex braiding practice. In this weaving problems introduced by the practice itself, two times are now visible:- Time of technical reproducibility, artist’s book and gift;- The time of discretion, digital and availability.These questions have arisen step by step and not according to a predetermined plan. The analytical work, therefore, is not looking for a pre-existing strategy or plan, but the survey retrospectively territory discovered by a walk in an unknown country.This continuous braiding of practice and theory is in the writing of the thesis too. Mingle with equal plastic works, literary texts, articles, manifestos and theoretical writings

Seth Siegelaub (1941, New York-2013, Bâle) est une figure majeure, connue des historiens de l’art pour avoir de manière séminale renouvelé les modalités d’exposition, de présentation et de distribution des œuvres conceptuelles. La carrière de celui qui a été considéré comme l’impresario zélé de quatre artistes (Robert Barry, Joseph Kosuth, Douglas Huebler [1924-1997], Lawrence Weiner) ne s’arrête pas en 1972, date qui marque son départ de l’art et qui aurait confirmé l’« échec » des luttes politiques d’une génération. Le dropout de Siegelaub – se revendiquant comme « not an artist » mais opérant au cœur du dispositif – serait-il une reconversion des savoir-agir conceptuels ?L’approche anthropologique de l’écrit dans lequel Siegelaub est puissamment investi permet de suivre un parcours de vie séquencé en trois « sphères d’activité » : l’art, le militantisme et l’érudition. Des entretiens avec notre personnage principal ainsi qu’avec ses collaborateurs, la consultation de l’ensemble de son fonds et des projets de valorisation nous ont permis d’en analyser les enjeux respectifs. La première sphère nous amène à découvrir l’art conceptuel comme une littératie qui étend de manière inédite les usages quotidiens de l’écrit. La deuxième fait émerger le centre de documentation militant comme forme politique de résistance au capitalisme et de transformation sociale. La troisième, par un intérêt parallèle pour le textile, révèle une appropriation personnelle de la bibliographie. Siegelaub ne change pas du tout au tout d’activité mais se déplace entre différents mondes sociaux polarisés en mettant en résonance des pratiques et en construisant des réseaux grâce à l’écrit. En 1969, Siegelaub affirme : « Je ne suis pas un écrivain – je n’écris jamais, j’agis ». Son rapport à l’écrit est complexe, alors même qu’il n’a presque rien « écrit », au sens littéraire, théorique ou journalistique où on l’entend généralement. Qu’a fait Siegelaub avec l’écrit ? Dans quelle mesure les écrits ont-ils permis à cet editor, publisher, documentaliste, bibliographe et collectionneur d’agir ? Il a multiplié les écrits typiques comme le catalogue-exposition, le contrat ainsi que la bibliographie et, dans certains cas, en a renversé les usages à 180 degrés. Le parcours de Siegelaub touche à des enjeux théoriques puisque chaque domaine où il a été actif a produit un point de vue « local ». Les artistes conceptuels se sont intéressés au langage et ont utilisé le document pour tenir des positions critiques par rapport aux œuvres ; Armand Mattelart, chercheur critique ayant collaboré avec Siegelaub, a montré que les médias jouent un rôle essentiel dans la lutte des classes ; le savant graphomane François-Xavier Michel (1809-1897) a été précurseur d’une approche sociale de l’histoire des textiles. Le parcours de Siegelaub permet de considérer ensemble des idées sur l’écrit qui s’élaborent dans différentes disciplines et qui n’ont jamais été pensées dans leurs articulations
Seth Siegelaub (1941, New York–2013, Basel) is a major figure in the history of art known to scholars for his seminal role in the exhibition, presentation and distribution of Conceptual Art. Often described as the shrewd impresario of four artists (Robert Barry, Joseph Kosuth, Douglas Huebler and Lawrence Weiner), his career seems to stop in 1972 when he turns his back on the art world, thereby seemingly confirming the failure of the political struggle of a whole generation. But what if this dropout—by a man who claimed he was “not an artist,” yet operated at the heart of the system—coincided with a translation of the conceptual methodology into other fields?An anthropological approach of Siegelaub’s expansive and varied writing activities allows us to retrace his career according to three “spheres of activity”: art, activism, and erudition. By conducting numerous interviews with the main protagonist and his collaborators, and consulting his extensive archives, we have been able to explore the key issues respective to each of these spheres. Siegelaub’s first sphere of activity encourages us to consider Conceptual Art as a literacy that expanded the everyday uses of writing in a hitherto unprecedented way. The second sphere shows the documentation center as a means of political resistance to capitalism and social transformation, and the third, via its parallel interest in textiles, reveals Siegelaub’s personal appropriation of the bibliography. Siegelaub does not so much change activities as move between polarized social worlds, whose practices and networks he interconnects via his writing.In 1969, he stated: “I am not a writer—I never write, I just do.” His relationship to writing is complex, all the more so as he has hardly “written” in the literal, theoretical, or journalistic sense. What did Siegelaub do with writing? To what extent did it enable the editor, publisher, documentalist, bibliographer and collector to act? Siegelaub experimented with various kinds of writings such as the exhibition-as-catalogue, the contract, or the bibliography, in some cases even reversing their purpose or function. His career touched on numerous theoretical problems, each domain in which he was active producing a “local” point of view: the Conceptual artists were interested in language and used documents to critique the work of art; Armand Mattelart, a leading sociologist who collaborated with Siegelaub, clarified the role of mass media in class struggles; and the nineteenth-century erudite scholar François-Xavier Michel pioneered a social approach to the history of textiles. Siegelaub’s career makes it possible to bring together various conceptions of writing developed across different disciplines, which had never been considered in terms of their reciprocal influences

The decorative and the textual have a complex and uneasy entanglement within the history and practice of modernist art. Sometimes celebrated as critical modernist strategies, sometimes denigrated or repressed as the opposite of Art, the decorative and the textual were understood as "foreign" forms that variously endangered, or, in turn, invigorated the power of art. My creative practice, which includes installation, painting, photography, text and an exhibition catalogue, exploits and explores this decorative and textual instability within modernist art practice. In my work, (visual) codes conventionally associated with the fields of writing and pattern, are re-examined and problematised by placing them within the context of visual art. When writing and pattern become the subject of painting there is an intriguing oscillation, complication and dialogue between the spaces and codes of reading and seeing, writing and pattern, the decorative and the abstract. The thesis also explores the decorative and textual instability within modernism by analysing some key contradictory moments in aesthetic thought and arts practice. In the writings of Clement Greenberg, a "decorative" painting is deemed the highest achievement of modernist abstract painting but to arrive at this goal, the decorative must be used against itself. In Frank Stella's early abstract paintings, decorative patterns structure the work, and yet the artist and his commentators only see the work as a kind of pure, abstract painting. In Lawrence Weiner's statement-sculptures, the terse, laconic text, that nominates materials and processes, is thought to be a "direct" form of art information that would remain unchanged even in reproduction. But as Weiner's work is reproduced in journals and magazines, this "direct" form of art is complicated through a variety of reproductive forms - documentary photographs, transcription errors and differences in the visual format and typography of the text. In these key moments of contradiction, concepts such as the decorative and the textual, that have often been regarded as peripheral to visual art, will be shown to have central significance in analysing its specific qualities.

The decorative and the textual have a complex and uneasy entanglement within the history and practice of modernist art. Sometimes celebrated as critical modernist strategies, sometimes denigrated or repressed as the opposite of Art, the decorative and the textual were understood as "foreign" forms that variously endangered, or, in turn, invigorated the power of art. My creative practice, which includes installation, painting, photography, text and an exhibition catalogue, exploits and explores this decorative and textual instability within modernist art practice. In my work, (visual) codes conventionally associated with the fields of writing and pattern, are re-examined and problematised by placing them within the context of visual art. When writing and pattern become the subject of painting there is an intriguing oscillation, complication and dialogue between the spaces and codes of reading and seeing, writing and pattern, the decorative and the abstract. The thesis also explores the decorative and textual instability within modernism by analysing some key contradictory moments in aesthetic thought and arts practice. In the writings of Clement Greenberg, a "decorative" painting is deemed the highest achievement of modernist abstract painting but to arrive at this goal, the decorative must be used against itself. In Frank Stella's early abstract paintings, decorative patterns structure the work, and yet the artist and his commentators only see the work as a kind of pure, abstract painting. In Lawrence Weiner's statement-sculptures, the terse, laconic text, that nominates materials and processes, is thought to be a "direct" form of art information that would remain unchanged even in reproduction. But as Weiner's work is reproduced in journals and magazines, this "direct" form of art is complicated through a variety of reproductive forms - documentary photographs, transcription errors and differences in the visual format and typography of the text. In these key moments of contradiction, concepts such as the decorative and the textual, that have often been regarded as peripheral to visual art, will be shown to have central significance in analysing its specific qualities.

I offer a cloud of observations about language and art. I will prioritize my questions about how language operates in art, the way it functions within my own studio practice, and locate aesthetic interstices throughout. There will be insights gleaned from the various orderers of order (Lacan, Saussure) and orderers of disorder (Derrida, Agamben), walks in terra-incognita, and even some poetry on my part. I will take this chance to orient myself among different structures and deconstructions that have piledup around language, aesthetics and art.

This dissertation explores the practice of contemporary artist Lawrence Weiner. From 1968 onwards, Weiner has presented his work using language and, as such, the artist is historically regarded as one of the pioneering practitioners of Conceptual art. The artist himself categorically refuses that designation, preferring to focus on the material aspects of his work. Nevertheless, his oeuvre has been largely received in terms of a predominantly linguistic intervention. Craig Dworkin encapsulates this position, when in discussing the Conceptual wager of Weiner's statements he writes: "Having tested the propositions that the art object might be nominal, linguistic, invisible, and on a par with its abstract initial description, the next step was to venture that it could be dispensed with altogether." By focusing equally on the linguistic and material aspects of Weiner's practice, this dissertation argues, conversely, that Weiner's work is primarily an object strategy, and not a dematerialized linguistic presentation. The first part of this discussion deals with Weiner's ground-breaking work from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, analyzing the full implications of Weiner's extraordinary decision to present materials through language. Close comparisons are drawn with the profoundly materialist practices of contemporary artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Carl Andre, Richard Serra and Robert Smithson. Weiner's use of language is also distinguished from the text-based works of Conceptual artists Joseph Kosuth and Douglas Huebler, problematizing the degree to which Weiner's statements can stand as an exemplar of postmodern textuality, inasmuch as their referential content remains of primary consequence. Several chapters of the dissertation focus on drawings, and in particular the artist's notebooks, an aspect of Weiner's practice that has remained largely unstudied. Crucially, the notebooks present a model of thinking which is wholly corporeal as opposed to purely analytical. Furthermore, they raise the problem of the visual in relation to a body of work that has been credited with the suppression of a traditional (optical) aesthetic. In being conceived by the artist as "maps," Weiner's drawings also invite an analysis of spatial considerations, and are thus linked to the artist's own designation of his work, not as art in general, but specifically as sculpture. Finally, the notebooks, like Weiner's films, practically dissolve the categories of reality and fiction. Indeed, Weiner himself would insist that every presentation of his essentially "realist" work is nonetheless inherently "theatrical." One of the long-standing criticisms of Conceptual art was that while it made aspects of circulation and distribution part of the work - thereby testing the limits of institutional constraint and expanding art's potential to engage in collective reception - it failed to achieve truly democratic access, in large part by neglecting issues of desire. Thus, Conceptual art's promise of collective accessibility was purportedly foreclosed by an art whose theoretical propositions lacked a democratic content. In closely considering the generic content of Weiner's work, this dissertation develops a picture not only of the concrete relationship between word and thing, but of the ways in which Weiner uses signs (drawings, text, films) to "objectify" desire, demonstrating that his "sculptures" must be seen as both conceptual and sensual, fully immersed in politicized questions of imaginary and bodily experience.

Tese de doutoramento, Belas-Artes (Pintura), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Belas-Artes, 2016
Anexo: "Uma vida inteira - peça de representação" disponível em suporte papel
A investigação conducente a esta tese desenvolve-se no interior de uma práxis artística que procura, em cada momento, estabelecer um vínculo profundo com uma realidade contextual que a motiva, circunscreve e abre em momentos sucessivos de exibição. Neste sentido, a pesquisa parte dessa prática artística com o fim principal de pensá-la no próprio processo que a gera e sustenta, procurando focar melhor e aprofundar as questões do enraizamento contextual da obra ou as relativas às necessidades de circulação a que os produtos criativos estão sujeitos nos dias de hoje, bem como a consequente possibilidade de desmaterialização de vínculos que estes sucessivos movimentos podem provocar nas obras. Sala de exposição – Parte II, obra artística central na investigação, tem como antecessora Sala de exposição, projeto que partilha como denominador comum o ateliê, que foi sempre o mesmo, e a sala de exposição, adicionada à própria obra. É esse ateliê, sediado numa antiga fábrica, o lugar de origem do processo gerador da obra e um seu constituinte. Mas, no enunciado desse lugar, considera-se também, uma sala de exposição, o local (onde na própria fábrica se expunham os objetos produzidos) como parte integrante da obra, que transita para os novos locais de visibilidade. Por outro lado, o ateliê é também o lugar ao qual todas as obras são devolvidas, física ou virtualmente, pelo que entender esse ateliê como lugar de regresso converte-o duplamente num referente contextual determinante para o estabelecimento da teia de relações que estrutura conceptualmente a obra em variadas situações de visibilidade. À procura de entendimento do papel na práxis criativa assumido pelo ateliê como lugar de regresso e da sala de exposição como lugar de alteridade, associa-se, complementarmente, a identificação de estratégias e metodologias criativas usados por outros artistas com propósitos idênticos, reforçando e problematizando a reflexão no interior do processo criativo.
The research conducing to this thesis has been developed inside an artistic praxis that demands, at each time, to establish a deep bond with a contextual reality that motivates, circumscribes and opens it at consecutive moments of exhibition. To this extent, the research stems from this artistic practice, aiming to consider it within the process that generates and sustains it, looking to focus and deepen issues of contextual rooting of the work or on those relating to the circulation needs creative products are subject to today, as well as the consequent possibility of dematerialisation of bonds these successive movements may bring to the works. Sala de Exposição – Parte II, an artwork key to this research, stems from Sala de Exposição, a project sharing as common denominator the studio, which was always the same, and the exhibition rooms that kept being added to the work itself. It is this studio, located on the premises of a former factory, the place of origin of the process generating the work and also its constituent. But, in that site’ statement, it is also considered an exhibition room, the place (where in the factory were exhibited the produced objects) integral to the work, which transits to the new sites of visibility. On the other hand, the studio is also the place to where all works come back, physically or virtually, and therefore understanding it as a place of return doubly turns it into a contextual reference determinant for the establishment of the web of relations that conceptually structures the work in varied visibility situations. To the search for an understanding of the role played in the creative praxis by the assumption of the studio as place of return and of the exhibition room as place of alterity, is associated the recognition of creative strategies and methodologies used by other artists with similar purposes, reinforcing and problematising the reflection within the creative process.

Contemporary artists often sanction elaborate rules for display of their works. Sometimes these rules tightly restrict the structure that must be constituted; other times they provide looser guidelines or offer a great deal of latitude to the installers. These choices about rules interact with other aspects of the work to contribute to its meanings: El Anatsui’s choice to allow installers to make extensive decisions about display has different expressive significance than Lawrence Weiner’s. Audiences often need direct information about the rules to understand and appreciate the work fully. When rules for display are violated, the work’s expressive potential may be undermined, or it may fail to be on display at all.