Acquisitions

ARTIST ROOMS: The d'Offay Donation

Lawrence Weiner (born 1942)

One room comprising a cycle of ten wall text pieces from 1988.

Lawrence Weiner’s use of language as his primary tool has marked him out as one of the principal protagonists of conceptual art. He focuses on the interaction between the art work and the ‘receiver’ – the audience who encounters the work in some form. Much of his work takes the form of language. He makes ‘statements’, which then have the potential to be inscribed as a written text on a gallery wall, spoken as dialogue on a video, printed in a book or poster, sung, or even tattooed onto the skin. This cycle of wall text works from 1988 features ten separate phrases including ROUGHLY RIPPED APART and SILVER THREADS ENTWINED IN THREADS OF GOLD.