Lawrence Weiner

The sad news this week that Lawrence Weiner has passed away. I first met Lawrence in 2005 when he completed an installation of WATER MADE IT WET on a bridge over the Manchester-Bolton Canal in Radcliffe as part of the Irwell Sculpture Trail and the first Text Festival. (although I had already acquired a public work from him which is installed on the riverbank in Radcliffe town centre). I spent a lovely day with him on the day of the unveiling and then did an In Conversation with him in front of a live audience at the Met - I think I blogged about it at the time. I remember being really nervous because I'd just read the thick volume of Interviews with Lawrence Weiner in which he frequently humiliated interviewers. He reassured me that that was because early on Conceptual Art was targeted by the Establishment and so he was interviewed by many idiot academics and journalists who wanted to show how clever they were. Soon after I went off to write my first poetry collection 50 Heads published in 2006. I sent a copy to Lawrence with a note that the poem 'Sculpture' was a response to his work.

Sculpture 

0. The object of making your opponent weep descriptions 

between the upper and lower structures in vertebrates 

forming the framework of the mouth, containing the teeth, 

the parts of tool or machine. That body language material 

with the tongue intropunitive instead of angry, anger our 

faults are most obvious as nothing hides them breasts 

move as sacks of liquid dynamic contents. The knife 

fixation on things in evaluation, of sweat-scented straps 

forward and back in the infantile world of ready-made 

values, woman, the happy or resigned slave lives allowing 

both misogyny and visionary context. Scattering 

amplitude internationally is that difference in any given 

place. Choice language to present material realities, 

histories that I only deal with divergent objects and all 

translatable to stand outside a less human presence more 

profound for their human attachment to non-living things 

and construction of bridges to be crossed as opposed too 

catalogued: 1 

He sent back postcard in which he said he had read the book on the plane to the Venice Biennale and responded to it very warmly, and specifically included his response back ARRIVING AT THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME. I'm not sure how true that is, but from then on he was constantly supportive of my practice in Bury. We met up over the years usually at some Art Fair or exhibitions he'd invite me to. And I liked to think of him as a friend. In 2014, when I opened the Bury Sculpture Centre, it could only be Lawrence with whom it opened. I remember the humour around the coincidence of him opening two other shows on the same night - one in Rio and (I think) Berlin. And as a recognition of our artistic dialogue across the years, the centre piece for his installation was ARRIVING AT THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME.