The Alfonso Artiaco Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition by Lawrence Weiner, Saturday 27th of October, 2018 at 7.30 pm, the artist will be present.

A pioneering figure in conceptual art, in the 1960s’ Lawrence Weiner theorized a reconfiguration of traditional parameters of the work of art. Weiner developed an aesthetic whose focus as he has put it, is on art “as an empirical fact of the relationships of objects to objects in relation to human beings and not dependent upon historical precedent for either use or legitimacy.” These are precisely the characteristic processes of artistic creation, thought and language, to be investigated. Indeed, language assumes a real sculptural value in Weiner's works.

Weiner first made public his Statement of Intent in 1968. Here he posited that the linguistic creation of a work of art was enough for his work to exist. The statement reads as follows:

1. The artist may construct the work.
   
2. The work may be fabricated.
   
3. The work need not be built.

Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist, the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.

Looking at his latest exhibition at Alfonso Artiaco Gallery, Weiner invites the visitor to view this show “as a mise en scène - a cultural voyage between materials…it is an exhibition that you can basically get lost in - as a maze of meaning - magic without alchemy*”

Weiner’s sculptures should not be seen as tautologies, like analytical prepositions that say nothing about the world except what they dogmatically assert, but as concepts that have an ontological value from which the viewer may grasp its meaning by deepening their own understanding of their relationship to their surrounding world. The visitor is invited to give meaning to these coding sculptures, activating interpretations that can stimulate reflection on their own varied existential aspects of life.

Lawrence Weiner was born in 1942 in The Bronx, NY, USA. He divides his time between his studio in New York City and his boat in Amsterdam. Solo exhibitions include those at Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL, USA (2017); Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA (2017); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria (2016); Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, UK (2015); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2014); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2013); Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2007); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA (2007); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA (2008), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico (2004); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2000); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, USA (1994); and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA (1990). He participated in documenta 5, 6, 7, and 13 (1972, 1977, 1982, 2012); the 36th, 41st, 50th and 55th Venice Biennales, Italy (1972, 1984, 2003, 2013); and the 27th Biennale de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2006). Among many honours he was awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1976, 1983), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994), the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1995), a Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual Art (1999), an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Graduate Center, City University of New York (2013), the Wolf Prize in Arts,, Wolf Foundation, Israel (2017), Aspen Award for Art, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado, USA (2017).