We were brought up in a world which was based on Aristotle. Science-wise and everything, that's really quite exciting and you learn a lot. There was one problem: there were parallel realities. And in a parallel reality, there's always one reality that's the prime and the second is always a secondary. And everything's a reflection of something else.
Lawrence WeinerThe only art I'm interested in is the art I don't understand right away. If you understand it right away it really has no use except as nostalgia.
Lawrence WeinerNow "professional" seems to be whoever you went to school with. It constitutes your nuclear world. And that's the fault of the teachers; it's not the fault of the young artist.
Lawrence WeinerArt history is fine. I mean, that's a discipline. Art history is art history, and you start from the beginning and you end up in artist in time. But art is a little bit different. Art is a conversation. And if there's no conversation, what the hell is it about?
Lawrence WeinerLike the people that in the 60s or 70s claimed the "end of painting" - all they did was open up a whole new branch for painting. Happily, it doesn't work. It's not a reason for art. Closing something out is not a reason for something to exist.
Lawrence WeinerPeople, buying my stuff, can take it wherever they go and can rebuild it if they choose. If they keep it in their heads, that's fine too. They don't have to buy it to have it - they can just have it by knowing it.
Lawrence WeinerThere is a discrepancy of somebody going to an art dealer and promising what they'll make for the next three years. And I'm old fashioned that way; I think that every exhibition you make is supposed to put you in the world, that the next exhibition is spinning off of that. It's almost like a riff. And if you know what you're going to do for the next three years, why don't just do it the final point? You would think, in a progressive situation, that the final would be the best.
Lawrence Weiner