Wie Joseph Kosuth arbeitet mit Sprache auch Lawrence Weiner, der aber seine Schrift nicht rahmt wie Kosuth, sondern direkt auf der Wand anbringt. Jegliche Form wird negiert, denn die Schrift und ihre Anordnung übernehmen die Funktion, die sonst ein Sockel, eine Vitrine oder einen Rahmen erfüllt. Die Idee macht die Kunst aus. Weiners berühmte Aussage von 1969 zeigt wie er den bisher herrschenden Originalbegriff unterläuft:

"Lawrence Weiner belongs to a generation of artists who began adopting a new creative media in which language dominated due to the possibilities contained in its abstract and virtual reality. For this reason Weiner is associated with the origins of Conceptual Art, but his significance as an artist lies in the fact that his adoption of language as a plastic medium is joined to a materialist conecpt of work. Lawrence Weiner and other artists of his generation were no longer concerned with the question of how art should look, but rather whar art is, how we - society - even know that art ist art.

Weiners work is not orientated towards the production of objects, is not particulary attractive, nor a source of easy pleasure, on the contrary, it forces the involvement of the viewer and makes demands on their intelligence asking direct questions about art and life. The work exist primarily in the form of language, visual or oral. They do not, however, encompass a literary aim, but instead are a vehicle for rendering insight into perceivable reality without the intervention of authoritarian or arbitrary personal gesture or expression. The work itself is self-referential even when it is not litterally redundant. It is circumstantial and broadly referential, and its condition of existence is emblematic of our time."

Andrew Cooke

04. 06. 1998: "Skulpturen aus Sprache und Musik"