A SPECIFIC SPACE FILLED WITH PARTICLES OF A SORT AT A SPECIFIC TIME

In 1968, while organising an exhibition at Windham College in Vermont, Lawrence Weiner decided to hammer a series of stakes into the college lawn and connect them with twine. When students later cut the twine, and therefore destroyed the artwork, Weiner realised that the results would have been the same had he simply written a description iinstead of building an object. Shortly thereafter he made language his primary medium. A central figure in Conceptual Art, a movement in which ideas are prioritised over aesthetic considerations, Weiner went on to question beliefs around artistic authorship and singularity. He purposefully tried to eliminate all traces of himself from his art, hoping instead to remain at a distance from what he created. For Weiner, who sought an intellectual detachment above all else, language offered a means to get as close as possible to complete objectivity.

Weiner’s wall texts can be propositions, translations, or poetic observations. The present work, A SPECIFIC SPACE FILLED WITH PARTICLES OF A SORT AT A SPECIFIC TIME (2006), is both precise and wide-reaching, defined yet capacious. Such statements call for multiple readings, and the addition of colour and punctuation can further affect their interpretation. Far from detached, these words instead encourage subjective imagination. They are meant to create connection. ‘I don’t find languages that interesting, I find cultures interesting’, said Weiner. ‘And in order to understand some cultures, you have to understand some of the languages’ (L. Weiner in conversation with L. Zapol, 25-28 March 2019, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.).