Who Needs Dan Deacon When You Can Have Lawrence Weiner?

Dan Deacon performed at the Whitney museum friday night, and it looked and sounded like it was one of the most exciting events of the year. Unfortunately, I was among the hundreds of people turned away, after the small café area of the Whitney reached full capacity. Members of the press were turned away, being told that they were even having a hard time getting Deacon’s own family downstairs to see his performance. Fans crowded around areas of the lobby with any sort of sight-line of the performance, while others watched from outside, through the large glass windows, hearing nothing, being taunted by the imagery of an absolutely crazy party that they couldn’t get into.

Fortunately, it was pay-what-you-wish night at the museum, so those who wouldn’t be able to see Deacon had the opportunity to see some great artwork without breaking the bank. On the main floor, Beth Campbell’s installation “Following Room” tricked viewers into believing they had entered a room of mirrors, only to find out that Campbell has arranged a perfect grid of mirrored reading rooms. Each little reading room is perfectly, meticulously measured out so that every angle of every item acts as a reflection to the next reading room.

A few floors up, I walked into conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner’s first American retrospective. One of the founding members of the 1960’s conceptual art movement, Weiner’s work is more focused on the idea that the product. Much like the late Sol Lewitt, Weiner’s work involves written formulas, and combinations of materials without the act of creation being necessary. Unlike Lewitt, Weiner utilizes a brilliant sense of graphic design to make these written formulas poetically visual. Along the huge walls, words are written with such well thought out typographical sense that they become visually enticing. But even though they look great, it’s the intellectually rich concepts that are really the art that has made Weiner such an important artist. The exhibition will be closing on Sunday, so I strongly urge getting to the Whitney today to witness this fine display of conceptual wisdom.