Generated by a series of fertile exchanges between two artists, Jonathan Ellery and Lawrence Weiner, HERE IT IS HERE IT AINT is a quintessential artist book ― in that it has no foreword, appendages or footnotes; and the meaning, as indicated by the title, is far from absolute.
It is apparent that while there are clear distinctions in the work of Lawrence Weiner and Jonathan Ellery, they comfortably inhabit the same context. For both of them, art and life manifest in an objective, concrete synthesis. Their statements function as catalysts for conversations whose composition craft a seductive mise-en-scene.
DOES NOT REFER TO ANYTHING BUT ITSELF
Fragments tussle, collide and interrupt, negotiating all four corners of the glossy pages. Weiner’s works, as material language, are countered by Ellery’s material abstractions; arrows shift, tape flows in undulating tracks, generic dots and dashes collide, i.e. a conversation in morse code. Everything is non-hierarchical. Words, drawings, objects, photographs are used with equal measure to bring about a change of state.
