Lawrence Weiner, Grandaddy of Conceptual Art, Sells $50 Wallet-Friendly Work on Web
Lawrence Weiner, via Canandian Art
Prints by pioneering Conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner will be sold beginning Wednesday, April 28, at 20×200, the online purveyor of limited edition artworks.
Weiner’s prints will be available in four sizes, priced from $50 to $5,000. (The $50 version will be 8 x 10 inches, in an edition of 500). As is 20×200’s usual policy, those on the mailing list get early notification, so if you want a first stab at a Weiner, go here. To see Weiner roll a cigarette and diss Helvetica, go to video here.
The Bronx-born Weiner, 68, is among the most established names to collaborate with three-year-old company. 20×200 has previously offered work by emerging newbies, as well as a sprinkling of marquee names, including photographer William Wegman, (see my previous blog posting here) and Mike and Doug Starn, the brothers whose Big Bambu project was recently erected on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof.
Weiner’s evocative text-based installation art was featured in a recent retrospective organized by LA MOCA and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Times Roberta Smith’s review called the Weiner’s retrospective a “wake-up call and a purification rite all in one.”
Weiner’s work is likely to be among 20×200’s most challenging and least visually conventional collaborations. Jen Bekman, 20×200’s founder, met with Weiner last week in his studio to discuss the project. “I went to the meeting expecting to talk with him about how it might work, but he already knew what he wanted to do,” said Bekman. “He loves making work that lives in public and that a lot of people get to have relationships with.”
During his four decades of art making, Weiner has received plenty of acclaim from critics and curators. The biography listing awards and exhibitions posted on his dealer Marian Goodman’s website is seventeen pages long.
He has had less of an impact on the auction circuit. A 1988 piece, consisting of the words Swept Away with a Rush of White Water sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $97,000, the artist’s top auction price to date.
“A 1988 piece, consisting of the words Swept Away with a Rush of White Water sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $97,000.” What is a “piece” here? A painting? print? wall installation? If the last, 100 grand is damned high, especially for an artist who supposedly dematerialized art.
I’m a new fan of Lawrence Weiner’s work. I saw a piece at Phoenix Art Museum and became obsessed. I checked out 20×20 and saw they have a piece of his in the $50 range which is pretty good think I’ll have to treat myself.