The estate of Lawrence Weiner, the famed Conceptual artist who died in 2021, will now be represented by Pace Gallery in Asia, with plans to show the artist’s work at Frieze Seoul this September and in its gallery in the South Korean capital in 2024.
Weiner’s installations composed of text have been widely seen in the US and Europe, although perhaps less so in Asia. It took until this May, for example, for there to be a Weiner solo show held in China, with a Lisson Gallery exhibition in Beijing counting as the first in the country.
Lisson will continue to represent Weiner, as will galleries such as Marian Goodman, Mai 36, and Regen Projects. A Pace representative said that the gallery’s representation of Weiner would be specifically focused on Korea, where his work will be the subject of a show opening at the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul later this month. That museum was founded by one of the country’s leading Suh Kyung-bae, who has appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list multiple times since 2016. When Pace unveiled its new Seoul location during the first edition of Frieze Seoul last September, it included a Osulloc teahouse, which is a subsidiary Amorepacific Corporation.
“Lawrence Weiner’s work redefined how art can communicate meaning,” Pace CEO Marc Glimcher said in a statement. “Language and material come together in his practice to create an experience that is somehow at once universal and unique. A giant of Conceptualism, Weiner offers the phenomenal, the radical, and the poetic in his work, and we are honored to bring it to our audiences to engage with it themselves.”
The Weiner estate joins a roster that includes a ranger of artists, from blue-chip market heavyweights like Jeff Koons and Alexander Calder to up-and-comers like Pam Evelyn, a 27-year-old British painter who just got representation with the gallery, becoming the youngest artist in its stable.