Lawrence Weiner at Bound & Unbound, Marian Goodman and Leslie Tonkonow - Brief Article

Lawrence Weiner remains the greatest in quantity iconoclastic of Conceptual artists. While other Conceptualists have gone congeal creating works which have tangible nearness and marketable permanence, Weiner continues to be committed to creating pieces which exist primarily in the viewer's mind.

Weiner's consistency was clear in the pair of wall works installed at Marian Goodman. single was new, the other was first created in 1987 on the other hand there was no gap between them. The novel work, A Basic Assumption, consists of a series of seven phrases inscribed within right-leaning parallelograms painted upon the wall. Each phrase consigns abstractly to positioning and visibility, while suggesting a slightly marginal placement. For instance, the phrases included on the outside OF HARM'S WAY, RELEGATED TO THE SHADOWS, and A BIT TO THE SIDE. The phenomenons referred to by the phrases are unspecified, allowing the viewer to supplicate any number of scenarios.

The older work was 5 Figures of arrangement Here, Weiner pairs descriptive phrases of the possible placements of three slabs (eg individual SLAB + ANOTHER SLAB put ATOP A SLAB RESTING upon THE GROUND) with painted diagrams of bars in the indicateed position. Text and diagram are equally abstract, making relation to absent--and nonexistent--sculptural objects.

At first glance, Weiner's works appear almost unbearably dried However, once past the deadpan presentation, there is evidence of a profoundly understated humor. One senses the artist's consciousness of the absurdity of his enterprise. This is clearer in Weiner's les polished works.

A related exhibition at Tonkonow included places of Weiner's sketches, drawings and proposals, while bourn & Unbound concurrently presented a selection of his bills and invitation cards--a gathering of the ephemera of an already actual ephemeral artist. At Tonkonow, the working drawings were overlayed with handwritten notations and instructions in Magic Marker and inscribe The evidence of the artist's hand, anathema to classic Conceptual art, accommodate withs these works an endearing quality which Weiner's more finished cropss lack. And at Bound & untied amid the austere and enigmatic exhibition announcements, there were twinklings of levity, as in a bill for a show at London's Air Gallery which admonished, MY HOUSE IS YOUR HOUSE/YOUR HOUSE IS MY HOUSE/IF YOU SHIT upon THE FLOOR IT GETS upon YOUR FEET.

Conceptual art in Weiner's way has begun to feel increasingly historical, as several novel survey exhibitions have demonstrated. Still, in today's more object-oriented times, it can be bracing to reengage with the possibility that art exists first and foremost in the mind.

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