Lois Weinberger

Born 1947 in Stams Tyrol, Austria

Died 2020 in Vienna, Austria

Lois Weinberger worked on a poetic-political network that draws our attention to marginal zones and questions hierarchies of various types. Weinberger, who saw himself as a field worker, embarked on ethno-poetic works that formed the basis for his decades of artistic investigations of natural and man-made spaces in the 1970s. Ruderal plants – “Weeds” – are involved in all areas of life, are the initial and orientation point for notes, drawings, photographs, objects, texts, films as well as big projects in public space. 

Ruderal plants – “Weeds” – are involved in all areas of life, are the initial and orientation point for notes, drawings, photographs, objects, texts, films as well as big projects in public space.  In 1991-92, he designed the WILD CUBE, a rib steel enclosure for spontaneous vegetation to grow without human intervention – a RUDERAL SOCIETY that creates a gap in the urban environment. At the same time, Weinberger began a series of subversive plant transfers to urban and rural plots appropriated for this purpose.  In BURNING and WALKING, he opened up the asphalt on the forecourt of Szene Salzburg during the 1993 festival summer and left this enclosed 8 x 8 m area to itself. This work was reinstalled in 1997 on the Kulturbahnhof car park at documenta X and again in 1998 in the City of Tokyo. 

At documenta X, Weinberger also planted neophytes from southern and south-eastern Europe on a 100 m stretch of railroad track, which became an internationally acclaimed metaphor for modern-day migration processes and with its poetic and political references furthermore. Since 2015, his work is being renewed and will stay in Kassel. In 2009, he was invited to the Austrian Pavillon at the Venice Biennial and in 2017 to documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel. With his work he contributed significantly to the recent discussion on art and nature since the early 1990’s. 

Selected solo exhibitions have taken place at Belvedere21, Vienna, 2021, Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2019, FRAC Franche- Comté, Besançon, 2018, Kunsthalle Mainz, 2015, Selection of permanent interventions: Uferhallen Berlin, 2019, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris – 2019, Bruegel’s Eye, Dilbeek, 2019, Laubreise, Erste Campus, Vienna 2016/2017.