gloss outdoor vinyl
11" x 20.5'
Private Collection, Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery

Lawrence Weiner has long been interested in combining language and visual art in his post-minimalist work. He has been one of the central contemporary artists since the 1960s, and his work often takes the form of typographic texts. He has transformed the nature of viewing artwork into a radically redefined relationship between the spectator and the artist. His work is tongue-in-cheek and philosophically playful. He tends to bring the mundane into the spotlight, showcasing words and phrases that might not otherwise be of great interest. The words in the context of an exhibition are the experience and subject to interpretation by the viewer, and the viewer only. It's small, distant conversation that the artist has with the spectator in the very moment that it is seen.

He also created a multitude of video, action and performance pieces earlier in his career, as well as many paintings and books. Since the 1970s, wall installations have been his primary mode of exhibiting. However, he still continues to work in a variety of media.

Lawrence Weiner was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1942. He has received numerous grants and awards, including the Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual Art; Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany; the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, among many others. Weiner's works have been widely exhibited internationally. Recent solo exhibitions have been seen at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Dia Center for the Arts, New York; Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. His work has been included in major group exhibitions internationally, including Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and the Venice Biennial*. Weiner currently lives and works in New York.

In 2007-2008, Weiner was honored with a 40-year retrospective of his work, titled Lawrence Weiner: AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.