Page 49 - Studio International - November 1973

secondary station point. The usual people entering. The sound track was offspring is credible, reasonable. I spaceless and timeless. They assume
condition being artist/tool/object. based on the Sunshine Room. I consider that as a viable extension. As any form or remain formless
The body pieces fuse the two exterior associated the dialogue which is very carrying the same components. The abstractions in the mind.
components into one gestalt. The specific with kind of a cosmic, conveyor belt piece is a product of the
artist directs the work back to himself. holistic thing. That room begins to same impasse. In order to deal with it, In contrast the gallery wall was
After art tested the ideas that were in turn into a cosmic chamber and I had to set up a reasonably tangible securely rooted in the here and now.
this interrogation, it became more applies to all rooms, all spaces. facility, a constant reminder, prodder, With his pieces Weiner publishes the
personal. My spinoff a few years ago LH : Somebody once said, I think it for this eventual hope. The art is used following statement :
was the use of my family members. I was Duchamp, that artists have only as a method to get closer to this 1. The artist may construct the piece
saw that as a method of enlarging three or four ideas in their lifetime, desire. I'm not that interested in 2. The piece may be fabricated
the time dimension. By using an and that they keep returning to these illusion. 3. The piece need not be built.
offspring that was younger, using same ideas. Do you think this is true ? Lynn Hershman Each being equal and consistent with
energies as substance, I could What are the things that you seem to the intent of the artist, the decision
incorporate them as elements that be obsessed with, keep going back to? as to condition rests with the receiver
could carry out activities that related DO: That might be true. I seem to upon the occasion of receivership, and
to me but in a different chronology. have consistent elements that REVIEWS he insists that it is of no importance
LH : Which of the pieces in the show transmit through large blocks of my whether the piece is realized or not.
at MOCA do you think are your most work. Things that recur in disguised Lawrence Weiner at the Jack The German critic Klaus Honeff says
successful? forms. They show themselves mostly Wendler Gallery, London, 17-30 of these works 'It is logical to use
DO: I think all four pieces are in a methodology of working. My September. Dennis Oppenheim process as material just as some
important. The Wishing Well is the methods are consistent, though it is at the Mayor Gallery, London, 17-30 artists use substance as material'.
least ambiguous. I feel more in contro sometimes hard to decipher this September.
l of how one can associate oneself from my work. My methods could be WITH RELATION TO THE Over the next three years Weiner's
with that. There are passages in both considered ideas, they could be VARIOUS MANNERS WITH messages changed in character. They
the hand, the slap, and the room considered tangible aspects. VARIOUS THINGS: became more abstract and he began
that override my original interest. LH : I see three ideas that you keep MADE UNSUITABLE TO/FOR to explore the use of ambiguity. He
LH : What was your original interest ? returning to. All your work seems to PUT OUT OF PLACE TO/FOR chose clichés from everyday speech
DO: The hand slap piece was deal with shifting things, either CATERED TO/FOR which contain references to place (up
composed about a year ago. There senses, components or places. You NOT QUITE DONE TO/FOR down, around) and also allusions to
is a time lag in my work. I find acclimatize these ideas to a psychic states, political stances and
myself working out pieces now that particular mode of consciousness. Lawrence Weiner's show consisted moral judgements :
were really considered eight months you speak in a vernacular of a of these phrases printed as posters 1. over the edge
ago. If this continues, the ideas I have culture, shifting jargon. and on cards for posting. There was 2. around the bend
right now will materialize in a year. I DO : Yes. I think that is true. There is also a selection of his other word 3. beside itself
give myself a lot of time. The hand, something about change that pieces published as little books. The 4. under the line
essentially, is throwing itself at the interests me. It is that basic first of these, dating from 1968, is 5. over the hill
wall. It's a pretty direct experience. experience that is realized at a very called 'Statements'. Here is a 6. beside the point
It is a spacial, sound situation. I don't early age. The sense of transferring selection :
think that there is much beyond what and interchanging components. It's 3.One sheet of plywood secured to Gallery Sperone, Turin, 1970
you see there and the way the very basic. I agree that that's a the floor or wall.
equipment is used, despite the fact condition that prevails in most of the 11. An amount of paint poured 1. MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
that the wall is an impasse and sound working process. Last January, I set directly upon the floor and allowed 2. LEFT OF CENTRE
goes beyond it. Sound can do things up a surrogate system that relates to a to dry. 3. RIGHT OF CENTRE
that a physical member can't, like go real exterior location. I always saw 23. A 2in. wide 1in. deep trench cut
through walls. The hand piece is about this conveyor belt as extrapolating across a standard one-car Gallery Folker Skulima, Berlin, 1971.
going through a wall, the Wishing from the train piece. It uses driveway.
Well piece is about passing through a contemporary ritual, this ongoing Weiner described his work as 'traces
solid. The untitled piece with the system to feed credibility to this real The book reads like an instruction of what an artist does' and I can't help
mirrored ball works on two or three desire I have to be able to physically manual for process or earth artists, yet reading these pieces (including the
levels. Originally it was called the pass through material. I think all the work withstands my present one perhaps) as
Sunshine Room and it was specified sculptors have wanted to do that. A demystification. Statement 5 'A contemplation of his position as an
that the room be chrome-yellow and lot of my new work alludes to removal to the lathing or support wall artist both politically (he claims to be
there be heat and sun-lamps as a conditions that I either physically or of plaster or wallboard from a wall' a political artist) and emotionally (I'd
reflecting device. I wanted sun-lamps mentally can't assume myself. I think was realized in the Lisson Gallery like to think he was in there
which could, in fact, leave an effect. originally the use of my children was Wall Show of 1971. A wall of the somewhere).
Could, in fact, give one a sun tan, based on personal impasse. The fact gallery was stripped bare to the
could have more of an effect on the that I couldn't get to these areas. The brickwork to reveal a fireplace and Last year Jack Wendler published his
only way I could get to them was to chimney-breast. I was struck by the book 'Green As Well As Blue As Well
Dennis Oppenheim use somebody else, and using one's extreme contrast between the As Red', which contains phrases
Untitled message and its manifestation. The loaded with overtones : 'Not Blue As
words were general. They referred to Well As Green As Well As Red'. Is it a
any wall that the mind could rule of thumb for the painter or just a
discover, yet specified none of them game of words? 'Not More Nor Less'.
and remained abstract. The gallery 'Not As Well As Red.'
wall on the other hand asserted its
physical presence. It was an orgy of He seems to be exploring the
colour, texture, pattern and form. interrelationship of quantity and
quality. Is it aesthetics or an offshoot
These messages (unlike Sol LeWitt's) of linguistic analysis or perhaps
are not instructions, nor even simply the thought processes of a
descriptions. They merely suggest painter at work?
possible action ; and because Weiner
uses the present participle or the But finally he seems to repudiate all
gerund form, these actions are these possibilities : 'Not More Green
suspended in time. They could occur Nor Less Green', 'Not More Red Nor
in the past, present or future or else Less Red', 'Not More Blue Nor Less
as continuing processes. Blue.'
Jan Dibbets calls them 'sculptures In a recent book 'Once Upon a Time'
made with words' and they Lawrence Weiner again questions his
encompass any time and space or are own activities. He asks 'Does the
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