Le parole sul muro sono un’altra cosa. La re-materializzazione dell’opera d’arte: Lawrence Weiner dalla carta alla parete

Abstract

Within the art circles that, between 1966 and 1972, engaged in the dematerialization of the artwork (Lippard 1973), Lawrence Weiner is probably the one who used language most coherently and exclusively. The verbal enunciation of the sculpture becomes the sculpture itself; any possible fabrication is left to the receiver; each option is equally legitimate. This rigorous theoretic line is, however, complicated by the transfer, starting in the early Seventies, of his writings from paper to walls. The transition occurs in Italy when Weiner visits Giuseppe Panza di Biumo in his Villa in Varese and finds there one of his artworks printed or painted on the wall (Weiner 1982). The event marks the start of a series of experimentation on fonts and typographic composition. The wall contradicts both the dematerialization of language and the tridimensionality of sculpture, reintroducing visuality within conceptuality. The paper examines the preconditions and the consequences of this return, exploring its connections with the international art world and in particular the links with the Italian context, where Arte Povera on one side and the verbal-visual researches on the other were redefining the relationship between art and language.