OF AND ABOUT POSTERS: THE LAWRENCE WEINER POSTER ARCHIVE (1965–2021) AT THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY

OF & ABOUT POSTERS is the most comprehensive presentation of the Lawrence Weiner Poster Archive to date.

Lawrence Weiner was a crucial figure in the development of conceptual art, a movement which emerged in the mid-1960s and radically redefined the role of the artist and the fundamental relationship between the artwork and the viewer. Weiner saw himself primarily as a sculptor, but by the late 1960s had departed from the conventional associations of the term by defining his material simply as “language + the material referred to.” Over the following five decades his short factual texts—which have been described as “steadfastly uninflected, willfully incomplete”—have appeared in various forms on the walls and windows of public art museums and galleries around the world as well as in song lyrics, audio recordings, posters, printed books and tattoos.

Posters became an important aspect of Weiner’s practice early in his career. Self-designed, sometimes incorporating a font Weiner invented, they are cogent examples of his approach to writing in public using visual elements we encounter in everyday life. The Lawrence Weiner Poster Archive was initially established at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1978 and then transferred to the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1991.

OF & ABOUT POSTERS consists of 250 posters made between 1965 and 2021, and will be complemented by a selection of Weiner’s editions, books, audio works and ephemera that attest to the various ways in which his work has circulated in cultures at large.