About This Artwork

Lawrence Weiner
American, born 1942

TAKEN FROM HERE TO WHERE IT CAME FROM AND TAKEN TO A PLACE AND USED IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT CAN ONLY REMAIN AS A REPRESENTATION OF WHAT IT WAS WHERE IT CAME FROM, 1980

Vinyl letters on wall
56 x 137 cm (22 x 54 in.), installed

Gift of Coosje Van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg, 1982.402

Contemporary Art
Not on Display

In 1968 Lawrence Weiner decided that the physical realization of his ideas was not a necessary condition of his art. A linguistic construction—presented as a title in the form of a simple descriptive phrase on the wall—seemed to the artist to be less vulnerable to change over time than an actual sculpture. This work, which describes a physical act of displacement as a metaphor for representation, and its title are thus one and the same.