Lawrence Weiner Joins Pace Gallery

Pace is pleased to announce its representation of the Lawrence Weiner estate in Asia, with a focus on Korea. Weiner’s work will anchor the gallery’s booth at the upcoming 2023 edition of Frieze Seoul. Concurrent with the fair, the Amorepacific Museum of Art will present a major survey of the artist. In spring 2024, Pace will present a solo exhibition of Weiner at its gallery in Seoul.

Weiner, who died in 2021 at age 79, is known for his flexible, generous praxis that centers on communication and defies definition or categorization by conventional means or method. Pace’s debut presentation of the artist will take place at Frieze Seoul 2023, where ON THE LINE OFF THE LINE (1997) will figure prominently on the gallery’s booth. During the fair’s run, the Amorepacific Museum of Art will open UNDER THE SUN, a survey exhibition on view from August 31, 2023 to January 28, 2024.

A major figure in the international Conceptual art scene, Weiner proposed a radical new mode of creating that centered on questions of objecthood as it relates to both the maker and receiver of his work. The artist adopted language as his primary material in the late 1960s when he issued his “Declaration of Intent,” a seminal text within the history of Conceptual art:

1. The artist may construct the piece. 2. The piece may be fabricated.
   3. The piece 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

In adherence to this declaration of intent, Weiner’s earliest work—which he considered sculpture—took either textual or physical form. For example, A 36" X 36" REMOVAL TO THE LATHING OR SUPPORT WALL OF PLASTER OR WALLBOARD FROM A WALL (1968) might exist solely in language or as a physical enactment: the artist chiseled away a three-foot square section of gypsum from a wall in the stairwell of the Kunsthalle Bern for the landmark exhibition When Attitudes Become Form in 1969.

Over the course of Weiner’s more than 50-year career, his sculptural statements became more complex and evolved to include works whose language raised questions about our understanding and experience of daily life. Describing his medium as “language + the materials referred to,” the artist made use of words, syntax, symbols, and typography as subjects unto themselves, presenting his pieces in carefully arranged compositions and orientations—frequently accompanied by graphic elements rendered in his signature style—that inform their meaning.

His work relies upon exchange and communion with the viewer, inviting unique readings and interpretations. Recognizing that every individual’s experience of his art would be entirely idiosyncratic while also unknowable to him, Weiner hoped that his open-ended works would draw out nuanced insights and emotions from each person who saw them.

Weiner’s artworks—which, throughout his career, he installed atop walls, floors, windows, manhole covers, and buildings; printed in books and on posters; and occasionally sung—are deeply connected to the physical, cultural, and social circumstances of their environments. The artist translated his works into numerous languages so that they could be understood in the contexts of their institutional and public presentations around the world.

Marc Glimcher, CEO of Pace Gallery, says:
“Lawrence Weiner was a revolutionary artist, reimagining the forms that art can take and the contexts in which it can be experienced. There’s a powerful lyricism and inherent openness to his work, which takes up the possibilities of sculpture and authorship. We’re thrilled to begin representing his estate in Asia, where there are many opportunities to bring his art to new audiences.”

Weiner’s estate has continuing relationships with many leading galleries around the world.

To learn more about Lawrence Weiner, click here.