Bent & Broken Shafts of Light

During the 1970s, Lawrence Weiner began to inscribe his works directly onto the walls of galleries and exhibition spaces. He had already been sending out his work on postcards, publishing it in newspapers, or replicating it on matchboxes. For this installation at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Weiner conceived a work that deals with colors and the immateriality of light. He drew his inspiration from the play of green, yellow, red, and violet of the Northern Lights. Stripes in these colors were applied to each of the gallery's walls, while the writing appears only in white. Weiner's work does more than simply reflect a natural phenomenon: among other things Bent and Broken Shafts of Lightgenerates a complex interplay of different levels of perception in the viewer reading the texts in the exhibition space. This artist's book shows all the walls realized for this project, as well as earlier works both indoors and ouside in the open air.