PUERTO ESCONDIDO.- Fundación Casa Wabi presents LAWRENCE WEINER: SOUTH OF THE BORDER, an exhibition of three new, site-specific works in Weiner’s iconic Margaret Seaworthy Gothic typeface. Weiner’s texts have appeared in all sorts of places over the last five decades but this is the first time they have appeared on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. A pioneering Conceptual artist of the 1960s, Weiner defines his work as 'existing empirical facts' as it uses words and / or signs printed in large format, where colour, typography, direction and position impact each viewer differently; each variation is loaded with implications and contexts. The artist sees his pieces as sculptures, because they 'take shape' when they are read, not when they are written.
'Lawrence Weiner has always been political - his intent broadly, specifically, empirically civic and cosmopolitan. But the work rarely wears its heart on an activist sleeve. Weiner generally prefers to operate at the level of root values focusing on universalizing fundamentals. On the other hand, he has never shied away from identifying difficult times for what they are, or for confronting them - which makes LAWRENCE WEINER: SOUTH OF THE BORDER sound like a political assertion, and it is. These three new sculptures and a book for Casa Wabi, and the rest of us, are an expression of openness to others and a rejection of nativism in all its forms. In them Weiner transmutes the threat of malignant geography into a one-planet dance.'- Dakin Hart
Designed by Tadao Ando, Fundación Casa Wabi is a non-profit, civil organisation that aims to promote collaboration and social commitment through art. Created in 2014 by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi, the foundation gets its name from wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept which presents a vision of the world focused on the acceptance of the ephemeral and the imperfect.
