SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION BY LAWRENCE WEINER AT THE WOLFSONIAN

Tuesday, 26 September 2006 07:55

MIAMI BEACH, FL – In celebration of Art Basel/Miami Beach 2006, The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, a museum dedicated to the examination and appreciation of art and design as an agent and reflection of change, will unveil a new work created by U.S. artist Lawrence Weiner that was commissioned by the museum especially for this occasion.

(LO & BEHOLD) (MIRA & VE) is Weiner’s response to the extensive collections found at The Wolfsonian, its location, and its place in its community.  His installation will begin on The Wolfsonian façade at Washington Avenue Street and will line the walls of the lobby of the museum, culminating at the lobby fountain.  Like much of Lawrence Weiner’s oeuvre, the work is grounded in language and a mix of common signs.  The result is a simple structure put before The Wolfsonian public to, literally, (LO & BEHOLD) (MIRA & VE). Its presentation in both English and Spanish, the artist notes, is in recognition of Miami’s diverse culture and its strong Hispanic community.

Lawrence Weiner was born February 10, 1942, in the Bronx, New York. An adventurous youth, Weiner traveled throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico doing odd and occasionally dangerous jobs.  His experiences included work as a stevedore, on commercial fishing vessels, and tankers.  In the early 1960s he settled back in New York, and set out to make a career as a painter in the downtown art scene.  Work from this period included experiments with systematic approaches to shaped canvas.  With that work, the interactive, collaborative approach to his work began to develop.

In Weiner's view, his sculpture is three-dimensional; it comprises language and the referenced materials, and this makes his work accessible to the public.  Fabrication is crucial to the work; over the years it has taken various forms.  He has incorporated his work into film and video scenarios, as songs on records and CDs, as cartoons on DVDs, on posters, books, multiples, and editions, as well as the installations for which he is perhaps best known.

The works of Lawrence Weiner seek to embody the complexity of simplicity, and are, in that succinct simplicity, cultural signposts of their time.  This is why The Wolfsonian has chosen to make this presentation of (LO & BEHOLD) (MIRA & VE) available to the public.

Lawrence Weiner will be the subject of a major retrospective in fall 2007 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, which will travel to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 2008.  Selected past solo exhibitions include those held at the Hirshhorn Musem and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (1990); Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1991); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1992); Philadelphia Museum of Art (1994); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1995); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2000); Palacio Crystal, Reina Sofia, Madrid; and Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama (2001); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2002); SAFN Museum, Reykjavik (2003); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2004); Museum der Moderne Salzburg; Tate Gallery, London (2005); and Museo Contemporaneo Rivoli, Torino (2006).

About The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
The Wolfsonian is a museum, library, and research center that uses objects to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design, to explore what it means to be modern, and to tell the story of social, historical, and technological changes that have transformed our world.  The collections comprise approximately 120,000 objects from the period of 1885 to 1945—the height of the Industrial Revolution to the end of the Second World War.

Visit The Wolfsonian at: www.wolfsonian.org