Robert Mapplethorpe

Lawrence Weiner

1982, printed 1991

© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

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Not on display

Artist: Robert Mapplethorpe 1946–1989
Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Dimensions: Support: 375 × 375 mm
frame: 644 × 620 × 38 mm
Collection: ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Acquisition: ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
Reference: AR00218

Online caption

Lawrence Weiner (born in New York in 1942) is one of the founders of conceptual art, a movement that placed the emphasis on the conceptual and linguistic basis and formulation of a work of art, rather than on its execution. Mapplethorpe portrays him as a rugged intellectual with more than a streak of flamboyance - a silk scarf draped around his neck and tattooed star on his wrist - and love of his own rhetoric (note the open mouth, as if he had been caught in mid-flow). The diagonal lines of his arms create a parallelogram in the centre of the composition that acts as a base for the bearded head above.