Lawrence Weiner: APRÈS ICI & LÀ
Lawrence Weiner
APRÈS ICI & LÀ
Galerie Marian Goodman | 2 September - 7 October 2023
"My work, my life, has been to make a specific object that doesn't have a specific form, so it can move from one culture to the other without being exotic. Nobody's take, nobody's reading of the work, is better than anybody else's because they engage it into a logic pattern in their life" - Lawrence Weiner, 2012
Galerie Marian Goodman is pleased to announce APRÈS ICI & LÀ, an exhibition by the acclaimed American artist Lawrence Weiner, from 2 September to 7 October 2023. This is the first exhibition of the artist's work in France since his passing in December 2021. Weiner, who considered himself a materialist and is known for his art sculpture, used language as his primary material, describing his works as "Language + the materials referred to." Please join us at the gallery on Thursday, 28 September at 6:30 pm for an homage to the artist, organized by curator Béatrice Gross. (Limited seating available, RSVP required: parisrsvp@mariangoodman.com)
Press releases: English | French
At the main gallery, we will present three pieces made between 2000 and 2014. A selection of video interviews with Weiner, conducted largely in French, will be on view at our space on 66 rue du Temple. These archival documents, which underscore Weiner’s decades-long relationship with France, feature the artist deeply and philosophically engaged in wide-ranging discussions about his life and work, which were inextricably entwined. In one interview, Weiner and curator Bernard Blistène discussed both personal and professional aspects of the work. Additional interviews focus on exhibitions such as Weiner’s 1993 career survey curated by Jean-Louis Mauban at Le Nouveau Musée - Institut d'Art Contemporain de Villeurbanne; “Magiciens de la Terre,” the groundbreaking 1989 exhibition curated by Jean-Hubert Martin; and his 2002 commission for the public library in Troyes, organized by architects Dominique Lyon and Pierre du Besset.
Weiner, who had a faculty for languages and glibly spoke several, translated his work across many cultures, enjoying the challenges of realizing exhibitions around the globe. He strove to eliminate barriers to encountering his art, because for Weiner, art was “something that human beings make to present to others to understand their place in the world.” He considered his art as a means to engage with the viewer as an active participant in creating– not simply interpreting– meaning.
The structure of his work, its choice of words and tenses, is pointedly without metaphor to encourage the viewer to find what Weiner referred to as their own “use” for it. In one of his last interviews, he commented on the peripatetic nature of his praxis (a term he preferred over the more commonly used phrase, “practice”) and how his art moved from site to site, country to country, concluding that what he presented had to be “comprehensible in the context of where it is being presented…they don’t have to agree, they don’t have to like it, they don’t have to use it, but it has to be comprehensible.” Weiner believed that through his work, he created points of connection and opportunities for dialogue that could bring about transformation and change.
Hommage à Lawrence Weiner
"A BIT OF MATTER AND A LITTLE BIT MORE," an evening in homage to the life and work of Lawrence Weiner, (1942-2021) was organized by curator Béatrice Gross.
The event featured an illustrated lecture by Gross, a reading of an unpublished text by writer Jakuta Alikavazovic, and included several screenings along with reactivations of Weiner's early works:
• A SQUARE REMOVAL FROM A RUG IN USE (1969)
• A CUP OF SEA WATER POURED UPON THE FLOOR (1969)
• TWO MINUTES OF SPRAY PAINT DIRECTLY UPON THE FLOOR FROM A STANDARD AEROSOL SPRAY CAN (1968)
• THE RESIDUE OF A FLARE IGNITED UPON A BOUNDARY (1969)
Lawrence Weiner (1942-2021) was born in New York City. He lived and worked in New York and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
AmorePacific Museum of Art (APMA) in Seoul, South Korea will present a survey of Weiner’s work, opening 31 August 2023. It will serve as his first museum exhibition in Asia. Over the last decade, solo exhibitions have been held internationally at: Holstebro Kunstmuseum, Denmark (2021); Fundación Casa Wabi, Oaxaca, Mexico (2020); Museo Nivola, Orani, Italy (2019); Milwaukee Art Museum, USA (2017); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016); Blenheim Art Foundation, United Kingdom (2015); South London Gallery, United Kingdom (2014); Villa Panza, Varese Italy (2013); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2013); Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2013) and the Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2012). Weiner’s retrospective AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE was held at the Whitney Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2007-2009).
Weiner was the recipient of numerous awards, including: the Oskar-Kokoschka-Award, Vienna (2022); the Wolf Prize, Israel (2017); the Aspen Award for Art (2017); the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation Prize, Zurich (2015); Honorary Doctorate from the Graduate Center, New York (2013); Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual Art, Maine (1999); the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Ludwig Museum, Cologne (1995); a Guggenheim Fellowship, New York (1994); the Arthur Kopcke Prize, Arthur Kopcke Memorial Fund, Copenhagen, Denmark (1991); a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Washington, D.C., (1983); the Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam, and the State Film Board of the Netherlands, production of film award, (1982); a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Washington, D.C., (1976); the 72nd American Exhibition prize, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (1976), and the DAAD, Berlin (1975- 1976).
Weiner showed his work in France since he first arrived in Paris as an artist tourist in the mid-1960s. Later in the 1980s he was invited to show first at the Consortium de Dijon, then the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris as well as the Magasin-Centre d’art contemporain in Grenoble. In 1990, he had a retrospective exhibition at the Nouveau Musée-Institut d’art contemporain in Villeurbanne followed by two solo shows in 1991 and later, in 1992 at Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (CAPC). More recently, the Collection Lambert in Avignon and the Fondation Venet in Le Mouy presented solo exhibitions in 2012 and 2020, respectively. Public art commissions by Weiner are permanently installed in the square Mendès-France in Villeurbanne (1990); the canal harbor in Chagny (1995), dedicated personally by Weiner to Jean Genet; the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris (2000), and the Médiathèque Jacques Chirac in Troyes (2002).
Press contact: Raphaële Coutant Raphaele@mariangoodman.com or +33 (0)1 48 04 70 52