Page 12 - Studio-International-January-1974

Lawrence Weiner: across a standard driveway looks just as one as an arena (at length the canvas was put aside
might expect. There is no mistaking what we to produce "happenings").'3
the books are meant to be looking at or what it is. We Are the Mill Valley holes to be construed in
might imagine the details of even a 'standard' this spirit perhaps ? Do they, perhaps, carry the
Eric Cameron driveway slightly differently or conjure up a process of demolition to the stage of exploding

mental picture from a different angle, but this the ground from beneath the foundations of
is incidental. Were the list of titles to detach future bastions of error as yet intuited only in
itself from the rest and get lost, we could the apprehensions of uniquely responsible
produce a fair approximation given only that it inspiration ? And should we, perhaps, cherish
should be simply descriptive, and only the effort each detail of the fractured earth as a unique
of a hard day's labour with hammer and chisel relic of an act of heroic iconoclasm, uniquely
need deter an attempt to reconstruct the sanctioned by the dispensation of its own
photograph. Both title and photograph present integrity ? Well, perhaps not precisely that, but
information so clearly and prosaically that we the pressure of some such interpretation is
could not ask more of a builder's construction inescapable, and even today Action Painting
manual. The titles, indeed, at this stage of (and the thought of its major critics) represents a
Lawrence Weiner's development, define the point of reference still in some ways more
work so totally that we might consider important than any subsequent development.
dispensing not only with the photograph but In general, opinion of the work itself has
also with the trench and driveway as well, and remained positive, and this goes for Lawrence
this is precisely the conclusion the guidelines on Weiner, at least as far as Pollock, Franz Kline
the opposite page invite. and Barnett Newman are concerned. But there
The Seth Siegelaub catalogue has been seen has been a reaction against the more extreme
to mark the beginning of 'Conceptual Art', but romantic-expressionist pretensions to meaning,
Lawrence Weiner's work emerges from it as an and Lawrence Weiner reacted too. The mid-
art of clear-cut, matter-of-fact materiality, and sixties saw his return to painting and to New
it is for him precisely because of this attainment York, but the works which emerged were again
(This article was occasioned by a visit Lawrence of clarity of definition in the material structure not altogether to his satisfaction.
Weiner made to the Univeristy of Guelph, where of his art that the transition to purely linguistic The 'propeller' series of paintings shown in
he took part in a class discussion organized by forms became possible. 1964,4 whether they alluded to real three-
Roald Nasgaard and Eric Cameron. The class In the light of the guidelines, one can dimensional working propellers that really
discussion took place on Monday, 13 November, consider nearly all of Lawrence Weiner's work propelled things, or to the television image on
1972.) since 196o as a unified production, and then it which they were based, commit the works to a
is only a matter of filling in descriptive detail, literary message which is evidently a
`1. The artist may construct the piece. but a change of strategy is evident. His cumbersome formality. It is futile for the artist
2. The piece may be fabricated. development entails a swing between the to protest that he is concerned only with the
3. The piece need not be built. extreme possibilities opened up by the idea of painting, any more than Matisse can
Each being equal and consistent with the intent guidelines and understanding this is important protest that he is an atheist when he produces
of the artist, the decision as to condition rests if one is to grasp the subtler points. religious art, or Le Corbusier when he builds
with the receiver upon the occasion of the The earliest works which Lawrence Weiner religious architecture. God survives in the role
receivership.' (From Lawrence Weiner: acknowledges date from 196o. Having become of a caretaker or there is no reason to make the
5-31 January, 1969, catalogue of works by Barry, disillusioned with both painting and New York, the building, and the same goes for Lawrence
Huebler, Kosuth and Weiner, published by he went to California where he built sculptures Weiner's propellers. If they don't mean
Seth Siegelaub.) by blowing holes in the ground in Mill Valley. `propellers' what are they doing there ? Remove
As earthworks at that date, they were them and what reason is there to produce the
The guidelines from the Seth Siegelaub undoubtedly of historical significance, but the paintings ? There are many positive answers to
catalogue seem the logical place to begin. Seth artist was not altogether satisfied: 'My only this question, but the logic of the negative is
Siegelaub had rented an office-building in New difficulty there was that I was still thinking in undeniable.
York; but it is reported that for him, the terms of each crater being unique.'2 A A somewhat later series of paintings suggests
exhibition existed completely in the catalogue.1 fundamental difficulty of interpretation is that a synthesis, 'All I had to do to a canvas to make
Each artist was given four pages with Lawrence these works take on a significance in the a painting was to take a rectangle, remove a
Weiner placed alphabetically at the end of the hindsight of Lawrence Weiner's later rectangle from it, preferably from the corner,
guidelines occupying the last printed page development and that of art generally that I because that seemed the easiest way to do it,
opposite a photograph of a 2in. wide tin, deep suspect they would not have sustained in the spray for a certain period of time with paint,
trench cut out across a standard one car driveway early sixties. Harold Rosenberg wrote at about and then put a stripe on the bottom. I would ask
from the collection (actual driveway) of Mr and that time looking back over the previous decade: the person who was receiving what colour he
Mrs Robert M. Topol, Mamaroneck, NY. Over `Another vanguard assumption taken up by wanted, what size he wanted, and how big a
the page is another photograph, of Two Action Painting with fullest intensity was that removal.'5
minutes of spray paint directly upon the floor from which demanded the demolition of existing There is no reason why an assault on a canvas
a standard aerosol spray can, opposite that the values in art. The revolutionary phrase "doing should be any less a gesture of romantic rhetoric
list of eight works by Weiner in the exhibition. away with" was heard with the frequency and than a hole in the ground (I find it difficult to
The format is the same for each artist. What authority of a slogan. Each step in the regard the slashed canvases of Lucio Fontana in
distinguishes Lawrence Weiner's contribution dismantling widened the area in which the any other way), but deferring to the wishes of a
is that the illustrations and titles are readily artist could set in motion his critical-creative patron (receiver) makes it as prosaic, as much a
identifiable without the least need to follow up processes, the irreducible human asset in a matter of everyday fact as laying linoleum or
references to catalogue numbers. The situation where all superstructures are shaky. It fitting a carpet. There is still a problem,
photograph of the 2in. wide 1in. deep trench cut had become appropriate to speak of the canvas however.
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