Lawrence Weiner (1942, New York, USA) has been making what he calls ‘sculptures' since the 1960s: wall installations consisting of words, often in bright colours. The basis for his installations is the idea that language is material. Weiner's installations are flexible: size, language and colour are variable; how they are depends on the location. Lawrence himself is very much like his work. At least: so it appeared to me after having spent 24 hours with the artist on his living boat in the harbour of Amsterdam.
The happening was an art project performed by Sarah Gold, Sophia Thomassen, Lawrence Weiner and myself, Karlyn De Jongh. Sarah, Sophia and I stayed with Lawrence on his boat between 12am on 26 January 2010 and 12am the following morning. During these 24 hours we have spoken about many topics: life, art, fame, future, sex etc. This conversation and what actually happened during these 24 hours, is documented as a theatre play in a special edition artist book, titled ‘Skimming the Water [Ménage à Quatre]'. It will be made known at the end of May, when Luïscius Antiquarian Booksellers presents this special edition at Art Amsterdam 2010. What follows now is a look into what Lawrence has spoken about: his situation on 26 January 2010.
PARTICIPATION IN THE WORLD
Making art is Lawrence Weiner's way to judge his relationship to the rest of the world. It is a need. Placing his sculptures into the world and letting them adapt into their situation, gives an insight in how things work. For Weiner, art is about this: somebody noticing a structure. It is this conversation with one's times that the artist considers to be his most important task.
Making an installation, for Weiner, is finding a work that is in dialogue with the world at that particular moment. It is about finding a basic, universal problem. Making an installation is asking a universal question in a way that, once people realize that it is a question, they can answer it in relation to themselves. But how to do this? Weiner notes that with each installation he does know what to say. The problem consists in finding out how to phrase the question; the problem is to find out what syntax to put it in. Each situation is new and requires its own syntax.
ART IS USE
An exhibition is a placement in the world; it is a participation in the world. This participation is two-sided and concerns not only the making of the work, but the viewing as well. Weiner's installations challenge the viewer to think about how he can incorporate the work and the questions they provoke into his life. The universal questions posed by the artist should be answered by the viewer. This conversation with the public is most important. The reason for this is that when the viewer incorporates the work into his life, it functions as art.
Weiner's installations are open for interpretation: each person understands the work differently and that is exactly what he wants. He sees no reason to close something off. The artist remarks that if the work is open, you do not have to have any false populism, you do not have to adapt the work and can present what it really is. Keeping it open, the viewer can adapt it to his own abilities, by trying to place it into his life. Leaving the work open for interpretation also allows it to reach many people.
Weiner's work is about creating an awareness that you too can understand the world. The greatest joy for him is "when somebody enters an exhibition and goes on: ‘what is this shit?' and then all of a sudden you hear this strange: ‘oh, I get it.'" To Weiner, it does not matter what the answer of the viewer is or whether he likes the work or not. It is about there being an answer. Because: when there is an answer, the work is successful. When there is an answer, the work becomes part of the place.
According to Weiner, art is very much about use. He adds that otherwise he would not bother to do it. As a teenager Weiner organized labour in New York and was involved in human rights movements. He thought, however, that with art he would be able to reach more people: "I made the decision that art was far more useful for the society." Weiner decided to become an artist when he was about 16 or 17 years old. He chose to try to make art in the world and change people's perceptions of themselves and their own values.
A RESPONSIBILITY
Making work that changes people's perceptions of themselves comes with a responsibility. Weiner seems to feel this responsibility every day. He notes that once the work went on the wall, he found himself in a situation he did not want to be in: a situation in which you have a moral and political contract, that when you are going to present an installation, you have to make political design choices. "That becomes another part of another language. It becomes an inflection, but it's still not the work." It is the problem of finding the right way to say what it is you want to say as well as having the awareness that what you say can have a great impact. He adds that art is a fight: it is about taking people's dreams away. The artist feels that when you change a basic perception of reality, you change somebody's entire sense of themselves.
What Weiner thinks he changed are logic patterns and "the way people think about the way that they would be able to present what they are thinking to other people." In other words: that there is a way that you can communicate with others, that does not rely upon the president of what was being used. Now, over 40 years later, he is happy that "a little bit worked." Weiner believes that his work made - and continues to make - it possible for people to have a better appreciation of the world and a better appreciation of their life.
A FULFILLED LIFE
Weiner mentions that he is a very sensitive person and can change his opinion from day to day. But when asked whether he is living a fulfilled life himself, his answer is negative. In saying this, the artist clarifies that he takes into account that he has his own personal questions about how one must maintain the possibility of living a fulfilled life. It is not that he has any regrets: one cannot change the past. We have to look at the future. "Looking forward, I see things I would like to be doing differently [...]. But again, that's not the kind of thing you can change. It's a hegemony, it's an imposition on you: you don't call up the culture which is your adversary at the moment and tell them what you intend to do. Because they are in a position to build up all the barricades possible."
During the conversation, there are several moments in which Weiner refers back to how the art world used to be in the past. He is disappointed in today's situation. He explains that 20 years ago, art was about making objects and states that objects are things that are in the way. The statement is a reference to the painter Ad Reinhardt who once joked that sculptures are the things you fall over when the lights go out. Weiner says that back then, it was about making sculptures in the sense of things that people fell over. The viewer had to get up and decide whether the objects were worth walking around or whether to throw them away. The situation was simpler at that time: "You know better, you do better; if you don't know better, you can't do better." He adds that "the whole point of an artist is to develop not as themselves, but to develop in their practice a relationship to the world as it is changing." To Weiner that does not necessarily mean being fashionable: it might just mean getting better in relationship to the world.
BEING AN OBJECT
The reverse of being able to have a conversation with the world and having success as an artist, is fame. Weiner has been mentioned as part of the art historical Canon. The artist is aware of his position: "I know who I am. I know what I have done and what I could do and all of that." He remarks that generally people understand who you are by understanding who you were: the past determines the present. During the 24 hours, he mentions several times how, while he is standing next to them, people speak about him in the third person rather than starting a conversation with him directly. For Weiner, however, the past has little to do with the questions he comes across in the present and that troubles him on a daily basis. Instead, the artist suggests that maybe only the last work that is showed should be discussed, even though also this is still in the past.
Rather than looking at the past, Weiner worries about the future and in particular about his upcoming exhibitions. The artist keeps looking for new ways to work: for him, it is about how the work is incepted. He focuses on this beginning and tries not being lead by the paradoxical situation he finds himself in. He remarks that we live our lives with our position and our decisions implicit. These decisions must, in fact, be explicit and must in some way leave behind the things that have given the privilege to be able to be explicit. For Weiner, the fame he receives has got nothing to do with what is going on in the world and therefore with the questions he raises with his work. The artist prefers the situation Jean-Paul Sartre created for himself: winning the Nobel Prize, while continuing to sell l'Humanité in the streets.
With regard to his fame, Weiner remarks: "I am not a human being; I am a kind of object." But although Weiner considers himself to be an object, to the question of whether he feels like something that is in the way, his answer seems mainly concerned with the next generation: "Whoever does something or gets something together, for the next person you are in the way." But the artist is not ready to step aside yet, only a little.
Karlyn DE JONGH
is an independent curator