There But For by Lawrence Weiner (review)

with his own schizophrenia and his unconscious-pre-recorded- voice, but also with the taxis going about their own business in the street. At times accident read perfectly as intention and the memorized text as spontaneous reaction. Opera was a premiere and was still at the sketching stage His area of work obviously demands this first "free session" like airing, and knowing the integrity of the other pieces he will probably spend a year or so testing the basic component elements and questioning the concerns until the model has been finally molded into the product he requires. There were some extraordinary sequences, not the least being his departure, rising vertically off a table accompanied, of its own volition, by a brown paper bag-but more at present I can't say. Thinking back to those performances-well over a month ago-his images and raison d'etrehaven't lost any weight. This quality we require in the contemporary arena. He strikes memorable discord of strangeness and offers a powerful presence. His movements, although often formally based, display the lawless co-ordination of the tall person, and his voice has the resounding clarity of one with a cavernous sound box. The performances are executed with a considerable ease, his own very particular way of being a fish in water, and he has the alertness one associates with the good comedian, enjoying the job and rarely missing opportunities. At times, maybe, he's a little too present. He displays a love for devices, tricks and the asking of ridiculous questions, which are so simple to the point that they begin operating at a kind of "zero level," and become marvelous. The drama of the performer's real life at the time ofperformance is evident, and hedoesn't attempt to solve all the problems, which allow the audience the opportunity to elucidate the rules and judge for themselves how the game JULIAN MAYN is progressing. His game is a pretty oblique one, and for some maybe a little esoteric, but he can hold both the conceptual and physical form of a work that is potentially chaotic, as if attempting to describe some new relationship between complexity and order (in the East they would say "the Sharawadgi is fine"). He certainly gives you what you haven't seen before, and happily he selects just one very small slice to be tested for reality, with nothing added on or mistakenly left in. One receives very little help in the way of tools for explanations, nor nothing for the theatre critic's analysis of what happened. The works just insist that you make a note that a game has taken place: you are given nothing but evidence with which you can do nothing but allow it to work away insideyou for months on end. Getting a years worth of queries and ineffable images from a seat in the auditorium is no small achievement. Peter Stickland ARD SMITH Lawrence Weiner, There But For. Mudd Club, (January). There But For A Structure of Lawrence Weiner is a twenty minute color videotape built on references to logical positivism and similiarities to the soap opera format. The title serves as the prototypical proposition. The structure Is the situation, standards and rules determined by the artist by which to verify the facts of experience with public sense perception. Weiner defines the participants 'before the camera as players; players take part in games and execute set standards and rules. (Game-playing has been used in many of Weiner's past tapes.) It appears that the players and the cameraman were given specific instructions and placements within the sets, but not told how to relate (i.e.,-how to actually construct the piece). In 1971, Weiner said, "What I'm doing is setting up situations where any way that the piece is built is alright." In the past he has created the terms within which a piece 45 0 D THERE BUT FOR can be created and it applies to this tape,. too. In There But For there are two sets (a living room and a bathroom) and five players. The camera (John Sanborn) observes the players' Interaction (usually hostile) and alienation Irom...