Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942 – December 2, 2021) was an artist born and raised in New York City. One of the central figures in the formation of Conceptual Art in the 1960s, Lawrence Weiner explored the potentials of language as a sculptural medium. For him language could be presented in any format able to discourse with typical art subjects such as: language installed on a wall, printed as text in a book or catalog, spoken or performed in a film, spoken aloud in conversation, simply remembered, et cetera; as Lawrence explains in 1970:

"As to construction please remember that... there is no correct way to construct the piece as there is no incorrect way to construct it. If the piece is built it constitutes not how the piece looks but only how it could look."

Weiner divided his time between his studio practice in New York City and his boat, The 'Joma' in Amsterdam. He believed in the importance of making his work non-metaphorical. His goal was to give his viewers the opportunity to use the work towards their own ends. He attempted to make work that crosses cultural boundaries and defines cultural distinctions while the work is frequently translated to suit the idea of place anywhere in world. He participated in public and private projects in the new and old world maintaining that:

"ART IS NOT A METAPHOR UPON THE RELATIONSHIPS OF HUMAN BEINGS TO OBJECTS & OBJECTS TO OBJECTS IN RELATION TO HUMAN BEINGS BUT A REPRESENTATION OF AN EMPIRICAL EXISTING FACT"

Lawrence Weiner was born premature in Manhattan, to Toba Horowitz and Harold Weiner. He grew up in The Bronx, where his parents owned a candy store. In 1958, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School early at 16, and went on to study philosophy and literature at Hunter College for less than a year. He traveled throughout Mexico, America, and Canada before eventually returning to New York City in the mid-sixties.

Before he began to use language as a sculptural medium, Weiner produced two distinct series of paintings in the 1960s which he exhibited with Seth Siegelaub: Propellor Paintings (1964-1966) and Removal Paintings (1966-1968). These painting series were concerned with “idea of painting rather than a painting”, but are still inherently bound to the physical constraints of a specific object, a paradoxical issue. Weiner’s sculpture STAPLES, STAKES, TWINE, TURF produced for the outdoor group exhibition "Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner" at Windham College in 1968 instigated a seminal revision of Weiner’s work. The sculpture was destroyed by the group to which the work was addressed—the students—as it was an imposition on their space. Alice Zimmerman Weiner recounts that the “work had trespassed a boundary that Weiner had not been aware of and prompted him “to reflect on the implications of imposing structures on an unknown public”. Weiner later declared that:

“A REASONABLE ASSUMPTION SEEMS TO BE THAT / PROLONGED NEGOTIATIONS WITH A NON- / ACCOMMODATING STRUCTURE IS NOT THE ROLE / & / OR USE OF THE ARTIST OR THE ART.”.

This incident prompted Weiner to realize that an artwork need not impose on physical space at all and Weiner began to utilize language as a primary material—the work “had become a manifestation of ‘language + the materials referred to’”. Weiner asserted that by utilizing language, “there is no edge that the picture drops over or drops off. You are dealing with something completely infinite.”. Joseph Kosuth stated that Weiner “changed his notion of ‘place’… from the context of the canvas (which could only be specific) to a context which was ‘general’, yet all the while continuing his concern with specific materials and processes.”.