As a pioneer of the conceptual art movement, he used words as his specialty more than any other contemporary artists.

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Lawrence Weiner used language as a material for a large number of visual arts. These visual arts transcended the boundaries of poetry and aphorisms and operated in the form of vernacular, sometimes Delphi style, generally full of hope for the human condition, Yu Zhou Four died in Manhattan at his home and studio. He is 79 years old.

The Marian Goodman Gallery, which represented him for more than 30 years, announced his death. The gallery did not explain why, but Mr. Weiner has been suffering from cancer for several years.

As a pioneer of the conceptual art movement-he refused to accept this description, preferring to call himself a simple sculptor-Mr. Weiner came of age in the 1960s, when art turned from objects to thought and action as a foundation and philosophy and language Studies and anti-capitalist politics share a common foundation. Compared to any other artists of that generation, Mr. Weiner is more inclined to print text on walls and floors, on manhole covers, on posters, billboards, book pages, matchbox covers, life jackets, and T-shirts. ——As his specialty.

In the early days, these works were usually basic descriptions of behaviors that could (but not necessarily have to) be performed to create the physical expression of art-"A 36" X 36" REMOVAL TO THE LATHING OR SUPPORT WALL OF plaster or wall on the wall "Board"; "Spray paint directly on the floor from a standard aerosol spray can for two minutes."

But with the passage of time, these works described by him as "language + referent material" are less and less connected with imaginable scenes, and more connected with the state of existence, language structure and abstract thinking. : "What the eyes can see"; "A little problem, a little more"; "(Often found) within the range of effectiveness / from large to small / from small to large /."

He said that the most important thing for him is the interaction between the work and the audience. The audience assumes a considerable responsibility, absorbing it, thinking about it and integrating it into their own experience, or trying to absorb it. Of course, this exchange occurs in every work of art. But Mr. Weiner (pronounced WEEN-er) believes that his work is highly collaborative, which is a continuous refutation of his so-called masterpiece concept of "aesthetic fascism" and the concept of genius that has prevailed for centuries.

If his works are sometimes difficult to grasp, and even deliberately profound, he says that it is because he himself is struggling with meaning, which he believes is the fundamental reason for the existence of artists.

In 2007, at a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York, Donna De Salvo, the exhibitor of his strategy, said: “I’m the one who thinks that the concept of being an artist will be in public. One of the people who is confused." "This is just the role of an artist, because the artist has to invest in things for which there is no standard answer."

In another conversation, including in the "Already Speaking" series, he expressed this idea more bluntly: "The only art I am interested in is art that I can't understand right away. I understand right away, except for nostalgia, really It is of no use."

Lawrence Charles Weiner (Lawrence Charles Weiner) was born in Manhattan on February 10, 1942 and grew up in the South Bronx, where his parents Harold and Toba (Horowitz) Weiner ran a family Candy shop. He described himself as basically happy when he was growing up in the working class, even though he had worked part-time at the dock to earn extra money before he was 12 years old, and later recalled that he was threatened by reforming the school due to various illegal activities.

He was admitted to the famous Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and graduated at the age of 16. Then he did odd jobs, wandered in the countryside, absorbed Beat's mentality and tried to figure out what he wanted to do, studied philosophy and occasionally tried expressionist painting.

In 1960, while hitchhiking to California, he marked his progress by leaving small sculptures on the side of the road. In Mill Valley near San Francisco, with the help of his friends, he created what he believed to be his first work, "Bunker Fragment", an anti-sculpture, exploded from a series of explosives, in an unauthorized cavity Explode. Fields of state parks. In its details, this work foreshadows a lot of things happening: openly, politically unstable, made with sparse methods, leaving nothing.

The real epiphany took place in 1968, during an exhibition with his young artists Carl Andre and Robert Barry at Wyndham College in Putney, Virginia. At that time, Mr. Weiner, who was still involved in minimalist painting, decided to use 34 wooden stakes to form a grid on a site and connect the stakes with twine to make a spare outdoor sculpture. But it turns out that this venue was used for football matches, and the players quickly cancelled what they saw as some sort of measurement arrangement-certainly not art.

After seeing the demolished work, Mr. Weiner later said: "It seems that mediocre people did not cause any special harm to this work." The description of the work, as a set of possible explanations, suddenly became sufficient. Up. "That's it," he said. "Of course this cannot be a reason to go out and beat someone."

Soon after, he wrote a set of principles that served him and some of his fellow artists, as a kind of conceptualist Nicene creed: "The artist can build a work. The part can be made. This work does not need to be built. Every time. Individuals are equal and consistent with the artist’s intentions, and the decision on the conditions depends on the receiver’s situation at the time of reception."

In the following years, his work was included in a series of exhibitions that became a watershed in the history of conceptual art, including "Living in Your Mind: When Attitude Becomes Form" held at the Art Museum in Bern, Switzerland in 1969; 1970 "Information" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and "Documentation 5" held in Kassel, West Germany in 1972.

Using the innovative contract drawn up by the curator Seth Siegelaub and the lawyer Robert Projansky, Mr. Weiner sold his work in the form of a document, allowing the owner to legally own the concept and freely implement it in various ways they deem appropriate it. He also designated some works as "public freehold rights", these works can never be bought and sold, and can be realized through negotiation with him.

Over the years, despite extensive criticism and a series of awards, his work did not bring him financial support. “The whole problem is that we accepted the idea that bricks can form sculptures a long time ago,” he told curator Benjamin Buchloh in 2017. "We have accepted the idea that fluorescent lights can make up a painting a long time ago. We have accepted all of this; we have accepted a gesture that makes up a sculpture."

But things moved quickly, he said, “when you think that language itself is an integral part of sculpture.”

Mr. Weiner and his long-term partner Alice Zimmerman Weiner (they met in 1967 and married in 2003) raised their daughter Kirsten, part of the time in a small boat called Joma, docked in Amsterdam, without electricity or running water. There is almost no heat. "It's not easy and it's not fun," he said in an interview with The New York Times in 2007. But he eventually became a household name in contemporary art, expanding the use of color and graphic design forms in his dictionaries and creations. In so many countries and multiple languages, his resume reads more like an atlas rather than List of works.

His wife and daughter Kirsten Vibeke Thueson Weiner and younger sister Eileen Judith Weiner and grandson survived. He lives in West Village in Manhattan and Amsterdam.

In addition to his other works, Mr. Weiner has invested a lot of time in the production of experimental films and videos for more than four years, including a collaboration with director Catherine Bigelow.

For a long time, Mr. Weiner has a Viking-like beard, which seems to complement the unique font Margaret Seaworthy Gothic he designed for himself. Mr. Weiner is known for his humor and generosity to young artists and students. Personally, he is an unusual combination of working-class courage and pan-European sophistication. He smokes tattered hand-rolled cigarettes, speaks with a round bass, and has an indescribable accent. This obviously has left the Bronx behind.

In a conversation with musician and artist Kim Gordon last year, he tried to determine the effect he wanted his work to achieve. He said:

"The interesting thing is that people create art for others. Our vision is to hold a concert, and when everyone walks out of the concert, they are whistling. This is not populism-it's just giving someone something they can use Things. That’s why what I do is to give the world something it can use."