Lawrence Weiner: Untitled, 2000
Deutsche
Bank Collection, ©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2005
How does disobedience function in your work?
Artists
get paid to push things to the limit. It's a totally vibrant, rather than
violent interaction, but it's violent in the sense that you're going to
destroy other people's dreams and fantasies by presenting what you
consider reality.
It's volatile.
Volatile is a good
word. Then one day it isn't and it becomes art history
Lawrence
Weiner: Untitled, 2000
Deutsche
Bank Collection, ©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2005
Alice
Zimmerman wrote: "The two styles of the Propeller and Removal
Paintings were bridged by ideas concerning conditions of ownership and
that all paintings were sold for the same price regardless of size."
That
was at that time. None of those paintings are around, so it's a moot
point. The collectors that have them don't want to sell them. I don't have
any.
Do those conditions of ownership still interest you?
It's
a matter of responsibility. The paintings were done in conversation with
people, to determine where we were going and how to build them. It was
non-contractual. A painting would develop, and they'd pay me or trade me
what they were trading. That's what I do nowadays.
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Lawrence Weiner: OIL + WATER + WOOD,1993
Courtesy
Marian Goodman Gallery
It's a direct
process of exchange.
If they accept responsibility, I accept
responsibility and we place it into the world. It changes people's
perceptions. Getting back to Aristotle, there's a problem - remember, he
was involved in parallel universes and hierarchies. My work has always
been involved in simultaneous realities. There cannot be a hierarchy
between what I make and what somebody else makes, there has to be use
value at the time.
I'm looking at the exchange between the
person perceiving your work and what they take away.
They're
using it and when they use it, the value becomes a necessity of the
effects of a capitalist society. And we do live in a capitalist society.
So did Aristotle. They had slaves, and thank heaven we don't.
Lawrence
Weiner:
A BASIC ASSUMPTION
OUT
OF HARMS WAY
A BIT TO THE SIDE
MORE
TOWARDS THE LIGHT
RELEGATED TO
THE SHADOWS
BROUGHT TO TOUCH
WITHIN
THE SPERE
IN VIEW OF MOST
1999
Courtesy
Marian Goodman Gallery
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