Wind & the Willows: Iron & Gold in the Air, Dust & Smoke on the Ground

Lawrence Weiner is a conceptual artist who has used language as his primary medium since 1968, when he concluded that viewers could experience the same effect from reading a verbal description of his work as they could from viewing the work itself. Since that point, he has been best-known for his word sculptures—short poems and witticisms applied to walls in plain lettering, always translated into the language of the country in which they are shown. In 1995, the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp commissioned Weiner to create a work for its permanent collection. Wind & de Wilgen; Wind & the Willows is painted on the side of the museum’s library, next to a canal. This 1996 companion book features a poem contemplating the reflection of the sculpture in the canal water. “Iron and gold in the air, dust and smoke on the ground,” the sculpture says. “ITS NOMINAL VALUE WAS REFLECTED IN THE WATER…ON THE BANKS OF THE CANAL LOOKING DOWN ONE SEES WHAT NOW IS THE MIRROR IMAGE OF ONE LOOKING UP. WHAT’S OUR HERO TO DO?” With American composer and musician Ned Sublette, Weiner arranged the book’s text into a country-western song for the 1997 album Monsters from the Deep.