Lawrence Weiner: WHEREWITHAL | WAS ES BRAUCHT

“There are so many varieties of germanic culture here in Bregenz that are not mixable, and I see that as a kind of geyser, like anything that builds up enough pressure, you have to lance it or pop it, that’s a geyser, that’s a pimple, a pimple popper. You know, that’s what it is. That’s what philosophy is. Philosophy is a popped pimple. All of these simultaneous cultures are teutonic (of a sort) and if you read them as tectonic plates one can understand the allusion to the geyser.”
–Lawrence Weiner. Bregenz, September 2016
 

On the walls of Kunsthaus Bregenz Weiner’s work becomes a commentary on the architecture, the space, and sensory experience. His works are only apparently site-specific. They relate to themselves, pursue elliptical odysseys through meaning and create deft plays on society, politics, and the place of art.

Lawrence Weiner is particularly important to Kunsthaus Bregenz. Because of his spatial thinking, the model for his text works across the building’s four floors is, according to Weiner, a kind of geyser. Geysers provide valves for excessive pressure, and art is a spontaneous escape from apparently hermetic tectonic crusts. He admits to that as being “idealistic,” but this nevertheless remains one of art’s tasks.

KUB publication
On the occasion of the Lawrence Weiner exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, an artist’s book is being published. Edited by Kunsthaus Bregenz, it will include essays by Nazli Gürlek and Rainer Metzger.
German | English approx. 160 pages, 22 x 30 cm, hardcover
Date of publication: January 2017