Lawrence Weiner

Made in 1969 but never published, Terminal Boundaries is an artist book by Lawrence Weiner, a sculptor whose medium was language. The manuscript for the publication, which was recently brought to light, contains two related bodies of work represented as typewritten statements on paper that Weiner pasted to the pages of a small composition notebook. The book’s absence from Weiner’s oeuvre plagued him as it marked a terminus of his relationship to the physical construction of his artworks, and illustrated the principle of “specific” and “general” which he applied to his art.

Created from a standard notebook purchased in a stationery store, the manuscript is two books in one: Terminal Boundaries and A natural watercourse diverted reduced or displaced. A tête-bêche with two front covers, the book can begin from either cover by turning it upside down.

Weiner was a traveler by nature and the materials he refers to in these works are those that one can encounter on a road trip. The artist was traveling across Europe when this manuscript was composed. Struck by the tumultuous times and the critical illuminations about the climate from the Club of Rome discussions, the works in this book are in Weiner’s words, “concerned with the relationship of natural resources in relation to human beings.” Distinct from his contemporaries associated with the Land Art movement, in Terminal Boundaries and A natural water course diverted reduced or displaced, Weiner constructs his landscape interventions in language—the specific and/or general act and the location are stated—offering the reader/viewer the opportunity to consider each work’s existence, to build it in their mind’s eye. One can only wonder what Weiner did to divert, reduce, or displace a natural water course in Saltsrumen, Norway, the location of the world’s strongest maelstrom, or in nearby Bodø at the site of Svartisen glacier. A work in Terminal Boundaries titled The joining of France Germany and Switzerland by rope demonstrates the geopolitical perspective of Weiner’s land art. Requiring physical and mental borders to be transgressed in performing this work; how and where could this happen?

Terminal Boundaries finds Weiner just off the cusp of his decision to make art that lived centered in language, emphasizing the viewer’s responsibility to engage with it to make it whole. The book marks a crucial inflection point in the artist’s practice, defining his direction to make work that “attempts to present something to people that is not just about me,” but about materials and the world we find ourselves in here and now.

Wind & De Wilgen (English/Dutch) was designed by Lawrence Weiner and published on the occasion of the execution of his work Wind & The Willows in the Openluchtmuseum voor beeldhouwkunst Middelheim, Antwerp.

Lawrence Weiner was an American artist and one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in de 60s. His work was strongly language-based and often took form in typographic texts, also visible in this artist book. 

Edition of 1000 copies

An exploration of minimal writing—texts generally shorter than a sentence—as complex, powerful literary and visual works.

In the 1960s and 70s, minimal and conceptual artists stripped language down to its most basic components: the word and the letter. Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Carl Andre, Lawrence Weiner, and others built lucrative careers from text-based art. Meanwhile, poets and writers created works of minimal writing—visual texts generally shorter than a sentence. (One poem by Aram Saroyan reads in its entirety: eyeye.) In absence of clutter, Paul Stephens offers the first comprehensive account of minimal writing, arguing that it is equal in complexity and power to better-known, more commercial text-based art.

Minimal writing, Stephens writes, can be beguilingly simple on the surface, but can also offer iterative reading experiences on multiple levels, from the fleeting to the ponderous. “absence of clutter,” for example, the entire text of a poem by Robert Grenier, is both expressive and self-descriptive. Stephens first sets out a theoretical framework for reading and viewing minimal writing and then offers close readings of works of minimal writing by Saroyan, Grenier, Norman Pritchard, Natalie Czech, and others. He “reverse engineers” recent works by Jen Bervin, Craig Dworkin, and Christian Bök that draw on molecular biology, and explores print-on-demand books by Holly Melgard, code poetry by Nick Montfort, Twitter-based work by Allison Parrish, and the use of Instagram by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Saroyan. Text, it seems, is becoming ever more prevalent in visual art; meanwhile, poems are getting shorter. When reading has become scanning a screen and writing tapping out a text, absence of clutter invites us to reflect on how we read, see, and pay attention.

New perspectives on the process of translation from the works of more than thirty international artists.

"[…] what I consider to be one of the most important arts of the future: the art of translation."
—Édouard Glissant

With The Poetry of Translation, Kunst Meran Merano Arte investigates the compelling phenomenon of translation. Over seventy works by over thirty artists shed light on the process of translation from novel perspectives

Inspired by the living multilingual environment of South Tyrol and its eventful history of interethnic cohabitation, Kunst Meran Merano Arte offers the ideal context for a research on translation and questions surrounding identity, multiculturalism, and diversity. The essays and visuals included in the book address translation in its complexity: on the one hand, as a source of inclusion, international understanding, creativity, genius and poetry, while on the other as a cause of misunderstanding and exclusion. It is understood here as a creative process through which something new is always created.

Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Kunst Meran Merano Arte in 2021-2022, with Amelia Etlinger, Anna Esposito, Annika Kahrs, Anri Sala, Augusto De Campos, Babi Badalov, Ben Vautier, Carla Accardi, Cerith Wyn Evans, Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Mader, Elisabetta Gut, Ettore Favini, Franco Marini, Franz Pichler, Freundeskreis, Jorel Heid & Alexandra Griess, Heinz Gappmayr, Irma Blank, Johann Georg Hettinger, Jorinde Voigt, Kader Attia, Katja Aufleger, Ketty La Rocca, Kinkaleri, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lawrence Weiner, Leander Schwazer, Lena Iglisonis, Lenora De Barros, Lucia Marcucci, Maria Stockner, Marilla Battilana, Michele Galluzzo & Franziska Weitgruber, Mirella Bentivoglio, Otto Neurath, Siggi Hofer, Slavs and Tatars, Tomaso Binga.

The Annotated Reader is a publication-as-exhibition and exhibition-as-publication featuring 281 creative personalities responses and remarks on a chosen piece of writing.

Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts invited a range of people, encompassing contemporary artists, designers, writers, institutional founders, musicians and so on – to imagine they’ve missed the last train.

“Is there one piece of writing that you would want with you for company in the small hours?” With this in mind, we asked people to submit a text with personal annotations and notes made directly onto it.

With over 281 contributions collected over the last few months, we have gathered a selection of contributors including Marina Abramović, Art & Language, Paul Clinton, Tom Godfrey, Ragnar Kjartansson, Sarah Lucas, Alistair Hudson and Hans Ulrich Obrist. The annotation adds a further layer, making each piece unique and a historic record of our current times.

Contributors:
Julian Abraham, Marina Abramović, Larry Achiampong, Saâdane Afif, Aaron Angell, Spencer, Anthony, Rachel Ara, Uri Aran, Cory Arcangel, Ellie Armon, Art & Language (Michael Baldwin, Mel Ramsden), François Aubart, Mary Aurory, Giles Bailey, Dan Baldwin, Fiona Banner, Simeon, Barclay, Anna Barham, Alvaro Barrington, Vanessa Bartlett, David Batchelor, Jacqueline Bebb, James Beckett, Frank Benson, Hans Berg, Emilia Bergmark, Vanessa Billy, Harry Bix, Juliette Blightman, John Bloomfield, John Bock, Doug Bowen, Benjamin Brett, Jack Brindley, Jim Broadbent, Yoko Brown, Hannah Brown, Stefan Brüggemann, Savinder Bual, Pavel Büchler, Nathaniel Budzinski, Gregory Burke, Wayne Burrows, Nikita Yingqian Cai, Mira Calix, Helen Cammock, Banu Cennetoglu, Tony Chambers, Rachael Champion, Alice Channer, Lou Cantor, Adam Chodzko, Perienne Christian, Martin Clark, Kaavous Clayton, Paul Clinton, Lucy Clout, William Cobbing, Gary Colclough, Beth Collar, Jack Cooke, May Cornet, Cel Crabeels, Paul Crook, Rob Crosse, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Francois Curlet, Matt Darbyshire, Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau, Gabriele De Santis, Poppy De Villeneuve, Richard Deacon, Liu Ding, Stevie Dix, Nathalie Djurberg, Gabor Domokos, Lauren Doughty, Helen Dowling, Joe Dunthorne, Sam Durant, Daniel Eatock, Shannon Ebner, Sean Edwards, George Eksts, Olafur Eliasson, gerlach en koop, Vivo Enky, Gareth Evans, Alice Andrea Ewing, Sam Falls, Abbe Faria, Chantal Faust, Jes Fernie, Spencer Finch, Alice Fisher, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Sal Fontaine, Tim Foxon, Mary Furniss, Ryan Gander, Mark Geffriaud, Alessandra Genualdo, Amir George, Alexie Glass-Kantor, Patrick Goddard, Tom Godfrey, Antony Gormley, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Rodney Graham, Lavinia Greenlaw, Hannah Gregory, Joseph Grigely, Corey Hayman, Richard Hayward, Louise Hayward, Louis Henderson, Holly Hendry, Camille Henrot, Susan Hiller, Andy Holden, Ashley Holmes, David Horvitz, Alistair Hudson, Craig Hudson, Candice Jacobs, Glen Jamieson, Tess Jaray, Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom, Sophie Jung, John Kaldor, Allison Katz, Jasleen Kaur, Jonathan Kemp, Sharon Kivland, Ragnar Kjartansson, Lorenz Klingebiel, Matthew Krishanu, Gabriel Kuri, Zak Kyes, Emily LaBarge, Suzanne Lacy, Max Lamb, Abigail Lane, Hannah Lees, Gabriel Lester, Jenny Lindblom, Hanne Lippard, Tom Lock, Sarah Lucas, Georgia Lucas, vanessa maltese, Shepherd Manyika, Céline Manz, Michael, Marriott, Rui Mateus Amaral, Midori matsui, Rebecca May Marston, Niall McClelland, Chris McCormack, Luke Mccreadie, Francis McKee, Bea McMahon, Harry Meadley, Nathaniel Mellors, Jo Melvin, Mathieu Mercier, Daisuke Miyatsu, Jonathan Monk, Jade Montserrat, Brian Moran, Franzi Mueller Schmidt, Clive Myrie, Hiroyuki Nakanishi, Shahryar Nashat, Daniel Neofetou, Kate Newby, Simon Newby, John Henry Newton, Olaf Nicolai, Helen Nisbet, Ryan Noon, Hana Noorali, Sophie Nys, Alek O, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Harold Offeh, Ahmet Ögüt, Ima-Abasi Okon, Vanessa Onwuemezi, David Osbaldeston, Kate Owens, Jonathan P. Watts, Barnie Page, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Francesco Pedraglio, Hannah Perry, Sybella Perry, Pratchaya Phinthong, Rachel Pimm, Emily Pope, Sam Porritt, Liv Preston, Paul Purgas, Tobias Rehberger, Pedro Reyes, Emily Richardson, Jacques Rogers, #Additivism Daniel Rourke, ryanna projects (Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen), syndicate (Sacha Leopold and François Havegeer), Giorgio Sadotti, prem sahib, Anri Sala, Margaret Salmon, Lucy A. Sames, Eran Schaerf, Annelore Schneider, Barry Schwabsky, Stephen Sheehan, Amy Sherlock, Anj Smith, John Smith, Bob and Roberta Smith, Renee So, Rustan Söderling, Nedko Solakov, Sriwhana Spong, Elinor Stanley, Georgina Starr, Astrid Stavro, Amy Stephens, Michael Stevenson, Jack Strange, Alfie Strong, Jamie Sutcliffe, Maki Suzuki, Rayyane Tabet, Mika Tajima, Lynton Talbot, Sally Tallant, Anne Tallentire, Maria Taniguchi, The Floors (Luke Dux, Ryan Dux and Ashley Doodkorte), Alice Theobald, Sam Thorne, Cara Tolmie, Marie Toseland, Rosemarie Trockel, Thom Trojanowski Hobson, Simon Turnbull, Lauren Velvick, Dana Venezia, Martin Vincent, Yonatan Vinitsky, Miriam Visaczki, Frances von Hofmannsthal, John Walter, Dan Walwin, Jessica Warboys, Ossian Ward, Evie Ward, Emily Wardill, Emily Warner, Nicholas Fox Weber, Lawrence Weiner, Charlott Weise, Richard Wentworth, Pae White, Riet Wijnen, Lillian Wilkie, Holly Willats, Issy Wood, Bill Woodrow, Seymour Wright, Shen Xin, Samson Young, Bruno Zhu, Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Andrea Zucchini, Heidi Zuckerman