Lawrence Weiner - Vogue la galère

Considered as one of the fathers of American Conceptual Art, Lawrence Weiner has been developing since the late 1960’s a unique practice in which the work incarnates itself fully into the topicality of the monstration space.

This play with, and within language has recently taken a new dimension. Always attentive to graphics, to dimensions, to colors and to punctuation in his interventions, Lawrence Weiner considers his works as sculptures which interpolate directly within the spectator's imagination: “The sculpture is in the words themselves.”

Vogue la galère results from a specific project which has been discussed with Bernard Chauveau Éditeur and Le Néant, éditeur. For that occasion, Lawrence Weiner wished to use an iconographic material he has been saving since the 1970's: a series of maps of various countries. The work, a series of six posters, forms a sole and singular proposition. To these graphic elements which evoke the world, the idea of travelling through the universe and of the impossibility of finding one's bearings in the fluxes which compose our everyday life, he adds a few aphorisms which all reassert the idea that these works are comparable to maritime navigational maps while remaining authentic sculptures that the buyer can put up on the wall. The perception of a navigational map is particularly reinforced by the printed shadow which suggests “successive foldings”, and in the plastification of these works. Lawrence Weiner insisted on counterbalancing this “coldness” with interventions in colored pencils, something generally absent in previous works. In their dimension and composition, this series of posters is an exceptional piece of work, all the more so as it is boxed in a magnificent casket conceived by the artist.

Limited and signed edition of 225 copies. ISBN 9782915837469.

The special edition (20 copies) has been rectified by the artist himself using a “rubber stamp” specifically made for this occasion (“like a passport stamp”, just as Lawrence Weiner wanted). Each of the six plates is stamped with this, and carries the artist's signature. These plates are protected inside a luxurious, wooden presentation casket conceived by Lawrence Weiner and bearing an original serigraph.