Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: A Tribute to Lawrence Weiner
September 15 – October 22, 2022
Press preview: Thursday, September 15, 11:00 am
Opening reception: Thursday, September 15, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Regen Projects is pleased to present Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: A Tribute to Lawrence Weiner. Weiner contributed greatly to the art of our time, helping to shape contemporary expectations of what art is, how it is seen, and how it is made. This group exhibition explores the scope of this influence, presenting Weiner’s work alongside works by his contemporaries, his friends and collaborators, as well as a younger generation of artists.
Weiner’s influence on the history of art, and more specifically within the pantheon of Conceptual artists of the late 1960s and early 1970s, is unquestionable. This tribute brings together works by many of the artists who shared in this generative moment—one that saw the birth of new kinds of autonomous artworks that sought to break the bond between idea and object. Works by artists such as Robert Barry, stanley brouwn, Daniel Buren, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Hanne Darboven, Joseph Kosuth, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, and Dennis Oppenheim will illustrate the rich moment out of which Weiner’s signature work emerged.
A pioneering figure who ushered in the dematerialization of the art object, Weiner’s commitment to the primacy of language was equally instrumental in changing the course of contemporary art. Open-ended, poetic, and profound, the statements that formed Weiner’s lexicon, and his concept of language as visual art, have become fundamental to the contemporary art vernacular. The exhibition illustrates how Weiner’s groundbreaking ideas extended far beyond the genre of Conceptual art to impact emerging movements as well as the work of subsequent generations of artists using the written word as material. Works by Charles Gaines, Jenny Holzer, Glenn Ligon, Bruce Nauman, Jack Pierson, Ed Ruscha, Sable Elyse Smith, and others will make these connections visible.
Others featured in the exhibition belong to the vast, global network of friends and collaborators that Weiner fostered during his lifetime—artists such as Birgir Andrésson, Matthew Barney, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Isa Genzken, Liam Gillick, Franka Hörnschemeyer, Jacqueline Humphries, Stephen Prina, De Wain Valentine, and Christopher Williams.
Finally, the show will include a display of approximately 150 publications and posters Weiner produced during his lifetime, alongside a selection of ephemera.
Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: A Tribute to Lawrence Weiner will include works by Doug Aitken, Carl Andre, Birgir Andrésson, Art & Language, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Robert Barry, Kevin Beasley, Walead Beshty, Mel Bochner, John Bock, stanley brouwn, Daniel Buren, Alan Charlton, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Hanne Darboven, Charles Gaines, Isa Genzken, Liam Gillick, Rachel Harrison, Jenny Holzer, Franka Hörnschemeyer, Alex Hubbard, Douglas Huebler, Jacqueline Humphries, Joseph Kosuth, Liz Larner, Clarence John Laughlin, Louise Lawler, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Glenn Ligon, Lee Lozano, Gordon Matta-Clark, John McCracken, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Catherine Opie, Dennis Oppenheim, Raymond Pettibon, Jack Pierson, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Prina, Robert Rauschenberg, Ragna Róbertsdóttir, Ed Ruscha, Sable Elyse Smith, Robert Smithson, Miroslav Tichý, Wolfgang Tillmans, De Wain Valentine, Gillian Wearing, Kirsten Weiner, Lawrence Weiner, James Welling, Christopher Williams, and Sue Williams. The exhibition will also include an early film by Weiner featuring Kathryn Bigelow, as well as a collaboration between Weiner and Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton. Ultimately, the full extent of Weiner’s influence is impossible to encapsulate, and there are countless others who could not be represented here whose work shares an affinity to Weiner’s groundbreaking ideas.
Regen Projects’s debut gallery exhibition was a solo Lawrence Weiner show which opened on December 8, 1989. The gallery has done ten successive Weiner exhibitions since then and has organized this tribute to honor a great artist and friendship.
Lawrence Weiner (1942 – 2021) was born in Bronx, New York. A leading figure in the development of the Conceptual art movement in the 1960s, Weiner’s seminal and singular practice used language as its core material—a distinct challenge to expectations of what an artwork is and can be. Questioning the fundamentals of sculpture and artmaking itself, Weiner shifted away from object-centric work with his 1968 precept:
1. THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK
2. THE WORK MAY BE FABRICATED
3. THE WORK NEED NOT BE BUILT
EACH BEING EQUAL AND CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST
THE DECISION AS TO CONDITION RESTS WITH THE RECEIVER UPON THE
OCCASION OF RECEIVERSHIP
Significant solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have been held at museums and institutions worldwide including The Jewish Museum, New York (2020–2021); MACRO—Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2020); Fundación Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido (2020–2021); KODE, Bergen (2019); Museo Nivola, Orani (2019); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2017); Milwaukee Art Museum (2017); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2016); Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, England (2015); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2013); Tate Modern, London (2012, 2006); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2007–2008), co-organized with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga (2008); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2007); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2004); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2000); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1994); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1992); and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (1990); among many others.
His work has been included in Documenta 5, 6, 7, and 13 (1972, 1977, 1982, 2012); the 36th, 41st, 50th, and 55th iterations of La Biennale di Venezia (1972, 1984, 2003, 2013); and the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006).
Weiner has received numerous awards and honors including the University of Applied Arts Vienna Oskar-Kokoschka Award (2022); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden New York Gala Honoree (2019); Savannah College of Art and Design deFINE ART Honoree (2019); The Kitchen Spring Gala Honoree (2017); Aspen Art Museum Aspen Award For Art (2017); Wolf Foundation Wolf Prize (2017); Art Resources Transfer D.U.C. Honoree (2017); Roswitha Haftmann Foundation Roswitha Haftmann Prize (2014); Skowhegan Medal for Painting/Conceptual Art (1999); a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994); and two National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships (1976, 1983); among others.
An opening reception will be held on Thursday, September 15 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.
For all press inquiries, please contact Elizabeth Gartner at +1 310 276 5424 or elizabeth@regenprojects.com.
For all other inquiries, please contact Jennifer Loh, Stephanie Dudzinski, Bryan Barcena, or Anthony Salvador at sales@regenprojects.com.