The estate of Lawrence Weiner, the Conceptualist artist who molded language into a means of visual expression, has new representation with Gladstone Gallery, which now represents the artist’s estate in New York.
Pace Gallery will continue to represent the estate in Asia, with a focus on South Korea, as will Lisson Gallery and Marian Goodman. The estate will also maintain representation deals with Mai 36 and Regen Projects, as well as Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Galleri Sesanne Ottesen, Galleria Alfonso Artiaco, Galerie Hubert Winter, i8 Gallery, Konrad Fischer Galerie, Massimo De Carlo, Osl Contemporary, and Taro Nasu Gallery.
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“I feel incredibly grateful for this opportunity to work alongside the estate of Lawrence Weiner,” Barbara Gladstone said in a statement, adding, “He proposed a radically new relationship to art through his exploration of language as a sculptural medium. Representing the estate is a dream come true.”
Born in Manhattan in 1942 and raised in the South Bronx, Weiner achieved decades of renown as a key figure in the highly influential Conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 70s—a title he rebuffed, preferring to call himself a sculptor.
The artist, who died in 2021, relied on an unusual definition of sculpture, however. He placed his text across floors, walls, T-shirts, matchbooks, often allowing his words to double as cheeky instructions. A 36″ X 36″ REMOVAL TO THE LATHING OR SUPPORT WALL OF PLASTER OR WALLBOARD FROM A WALL, from 1968, asked exhibiting institutions to remove a portion of a wall using the dimensions stated in the title. This irreverent spirit won him admirers across the art world.
Over time, his creations, which he called “language + the materials referred to,” evolved in intention. In 2009, for example, he stenciled the big red words “AT THE SAME MOMENT” on a ferry dock at New York’s Governors Island. He maintained that art—or, at least, his sort of art—was powered by audience collaboration.
“Art,” Weiner remarked in 2020, “is people who saw the configuration and were not satisfied with it and went to change the configuration of the way we look at objects.”