SOMETHING TO PUT SOMETHING ON
Lawrence Weiner
SOMETHING TO PUT SOMETHING ON is a jewel among Lawrence Weiner’s many acclaimed artist’s books: a playful and witty work that captures the arc of the artist’s own creative life from his childhood into the present day. We first developed the book with the artist twenty years ago and published the first edition in 2008. Yet even today the work is full of surprises that remind us that as bookmakers we must do still more to fulfill the artist’s intentions. In this spirit, we announce a new edition of the work.
Just as a musician revisits a work many times over the span of a career and expresses a deeper understanding with each performance, SOMETHING TO PUT SOMETHING ON has provoked us to contemplate, to observe, and to realize the work again in a more insightful rendition. Like Johann Sebastian Bach’s two-part Inventions, Weiner’s minimalism embodies a depth intended to challenge both the child as well as the accomplished master. We strove with the first edition to make a beautiful and haptic book that would be affordable for young readers. With the new edition we articulated the vibrancy, clarity, and simplicity of Weiner’s work in a more precise and concentrated material form, and by working with materials of the highest quality and archival standards, we ensured a long and beautiful life for one of the artist’s most important works.
At the heart of this new rendition is an extraordinary paper: Zerkall Book Wove. The fiber structure and surface of this cylinder-mouldmade paper gives unusual clarity to the edges, lines, and idiosyncratic rhythm of Weiner’s artist-designed letter forms, qualities that are further emphasized in the revised typography throughout the new edition. In contrast to the precision and refinement of the forms, the paper allowed for an expressive, almost rebellious inking method, in which we threw off the shackles of standardized offset-lithography to embrace the unique characteristics of each ink. Weiner’s standard blue 299 and red 032 show their distinctive rheological qualities and personalities. The result is an intense aesthetic contrast between a fluid, highly transparent blue and a stiff, viscous red, the inks Weiner has chosen for the two voices in dialogue in the work.
Artist book / an original work for print
Hardcover wrapped with printed Buckram: stitched book block with integrated endpapers, reinforced spine, headband
Trimmed page 25 x 21cm (8.5 x 10 in.)
48 pages, including integrated endpapers
Illustrated in red, blue, orange, and black throughout
The specifications listed above apply to both the first and second editions of the book
Materials/second edition: Book paper is Zerkall Book Wove – white, matte, 170 gsm. This is a cylinder-mouldmade paper with cotton content. It is acid free, wood free, neutral sized, alkaline buffered, and contains no optical brighteners. The paper meets the highest standards of permanence in accordance with ANSI Z 39.48-1992, DIN ISO 9706 and DIN 6738. Bookbinders boards are Köhler Book, a pH neutral, cylinder-mouldmade board from Albert Köhler Pappenfabrik, Gegenbach. The edition is bound in Arbelave Library Buckram.
Printing/second edition: book and cover were printed on Little Steidl’s offset-lithographic press using red, blue, orange, black, and silver inks.
Work and book design: Lawrence Weiner
Typeface: Margaret Seaworthy Gothic by Lawrence Weiner
Project development: Jerry Sohn and Nina Holland
Book production and printing/second edition: Nina Holland/Little Steidl
Binding/second edition: Lachenmaier, Reutlingen
Second Edition (Zerkall edition)
ISBN 978-3-944630-02-1
Little Steidl: 2017
Price: €69 in Germany
The first edition of SOMETHING TO PUT SOMETHING ON was printed by Steidl on Munken Print cream 1,8 150 gsm and was published in 2008 (ISBN 978 3 86521 491 1). The first edition is sold out. Please note that the first edition was produced with the objective of affordability and is not archival.
About the Artist
Lawrence Weiner was born in Bronx, New York in 1942 and educated in the New York City public school system. The book has long been a central component of his life work. His works have been shown internationally in museums. The works also inhabit many public spaces around the world—sides of buildings, cobblestones and pavers, open squares, manhole covers—and are frequently passed from the hand of one reader to another. Weiner has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, the Arthur Kopcke Prize, and the Singer Prize, among others.