Sol LeWitt At The MoMA

The Wall Drawings are done from a set of instructions. There is very little latitude for the draftsperson to make changes. Sol LeWitt felt that anyone could do a Wall Drawing no matter how poorly the execution.

The system is the work of art. The idea behind the work is of primary importance. The visual piece of art is the proof of the system.

The work of art is the vehicle for the transmission of the idea. The reproduction of the piece only reinforces the idea.

This makes the appearance of the work of art secondary to the idea. It is the idea that is being reproduced.

Many people still see art as visual objects without understanding what they are. They don't understand that the visual part of the piece may be boring, but it's the idea that is interesting.

For Sol LeWitt it isn't what it looks like but what it is that is important.

"I just had to make decisions and the main decision was that one had to, simplify things rather than make things more complicated".

"I think that the best ideas are always the simplest".

"One had to figure out what one wanted to do and then simplify it in that direction". - Sol LeWitt

I've taken an interview, Fall 2003, with Sol LeWitt by Saul Ostrow and extracted LeWitt's thought process about his art.

Sol LeWitt: 100 Thoughts:

1. My thinking derived from Muybridge and the idea of serialism.
2. I thought Dada was basically perceptual, relying on the often outraged response of the viewer.
3. Pop art was a legacy of this.
4. I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art.
5. My interest, starting around 1965, building conceptual systems, which grew out of Minimalism.
6. The Fluxists' Conceptual Art, which predated mine, was influenced by Duchamp.
7. My thinking was a reaction to theirs.
8. Minimalism was only a stylistic reaction to the rhetoric of Abstract Expressionism.
9. Minimalism ended once the simplest form was achieved. It was self-defeating, because simplicity of form could only go so far.
10. I used the elements of these simple forms - square, cube, line and color - to produce logical systems.
11. Most of these systems were finite; they were complete using all possible variations. This kept them simple.
12. I was involved in both the idea and the object, not in the use of new materials or the process of action.
13. The use of serial ideas became my vocabulary, which by using basic forms made a process of ideas.
14. Once I started working serially, a certain amount of decision making was being deferred.
15. I believe the appearance of the work is secondary to the idea of the work, which makes the idea of primary importance.
16. The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the system.
17. The visual aspect can't be understood without understanding the system.
18. It isn't what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.
19. Ad Reinhardt was an artist of ideas. His writings were of great interest to me and became the key to my thinking.
20. Minimalism wasn't a real idea - it ended before it started.
21. Artists of many diverse types began using simple forms to their own ends.
22. Almost every artist of the '60s and '70s took off from Minimalism in different directions.
23. There was no other place to start if you weren't involved with Duchampian - type thinking or Pop art.
24. Those lines of escape were what eventually became classic Conceptual art.
25. In the end all these things melded together during the '80s and '90s, mainly due to Bruce Nauman, who combined the two ways of thinking.
26. Robert Morris brought Minimalism to its logical end.
27.The '60s were awash in politics and revolution.
28. I thought by doing drawings on the wall, they would be non transportable therefore a commitment by the owner would be implied and they could not be bought or sold easily.
29. I became interested in making books, starting about 1965, when I did the Serial Project #1, deciding that I needed a small book to show how the work could be understood and how the system worked.
30. From that time I began to do books as works in themselves.
31. I used photographs in most of these pieces. The importance of Ed Ruscha in this cannot be ignored. Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.
32. It was a way of questioning the general perception of art as inaccessible.
33. Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.
34. As soon as I started to work on walls, the idea of using the whole wall followed.
35. To me it means that the art is intimately involved with the architecture.
36. It is available to be seen by everyone.
37. Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept.
38. It is the idea that is being reproduced.
39. Anyone who understands the work of art owns it.
40. As an artist in the late '50s I was aware that while Abstract Expressionism was the major form and that prodigious works were being made at the time, the end was in sight.
41. I knew it was finished, even though, at that time, I didn't know what I would do.
42. Every generation renews itself in its own way; there's always a reaction against whatever is standard. It was to be expected.
43. The reason I think the art of the '60s is valuable, is that it freed art from the formal and aesthetic.
44. It allowed art to move toward the narrative.
45. Instead of the aestheticism and formalism of modernism, art became politicized, then socialized, then sexualized.
46. Greenberg was the last vestige of the aestheticism that began with Roger Fry and with the early moderns.
47.Greenberg hated Minimalism.
48. Although it was still formalist in terms of its rhetoric, it put a stop to modernism.
49. In turn, the problem of Minimalism was that it became an end in itself.
50. Conceptualism provided an escape from the formal and the perceptual into the conceptual and the analytic.
51. An idea is finished when it is codified by academics.
52. Greenberg's espousal of the second generation of Abstract Expressionism was its kiss of death.
53. Serial systems and their permutations function as a narrative that has to be understood.
54. People still see things as visual objects without understanding what they are.
55.They don't understand that the visual part may be boring but it's the narrative that's interesting.
56. The narrative of serial art works more like music than like literature.
57. Words are another thing.
58. Unless you're involved with thinking about what you're doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over and that becomes tedious and in the end, defeating.
59. In my case, I reached a point in the evolution of my work at which the ideology and ideas became inhibiting.
60. I felt that I had become a prisoner of my own pronouncements or ideas.
61. I found I was compelled by the innate logic of the work to follow a different way.
62. Whether it was a step forward or a step back or a step sideways didn't matter.
63. At that point I had moved to Italy. Quattrocento art really impressed me.
64. I began to think about how art isn't an avant garde game. It has to be something more universal, more important.
65. You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.
66. Everyone gets into their own box and enunciates principles, if only in their own mind. You have your own constraints and your own structure that you think you're following and then you realize that what you're saying is "I can do this, but I can't do that."
67. And then at some point you say, "Well, why not?" and the answer is - "Because I told myself I couldn't."
68. If you keep telling yourself, "You can," then you are liberated.
69. If you're totally constrained, all that's left for you to do is break the mold.
70. "Every wall is a door."
71. Artists teach critics what to think.
72. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.
73. Critics don't want you to tell them, "Oh, that doesn't work anymore," they get terribly upset.
74. But that's to be expected, too, because they have to learn something else. Academics love the academy.
75. My work, to me, has proceeded in a logical, organic way.
76. Each development leads to the next.
77. Maybe sometimes there is a leap from one to another, but I don't think that is arbitrary.
78. Sometimes my ideas work, sometimes they don't.
79. Even if an idea doesn't work they may lead to something that does - a revelation.
80. When working on wall-size space, the eccentricities of the space may give me ideas.
81. I've always made drawings and later, gouaches simultaneously with the wall drawings.
82. As with the wall pieces, the gouaches have had their own organic development, I try to make them as part of the ritual of my life.
83. The ideas in the gouaches do not run parallel with those of the wall drawings.
84. The gouaches are quite different and follow their own logic.
85. The wall drawings have ideas that can be transmitted to others to realize.
86. The wall drawings more and more began to be done by other people.
87. Only I can do the gouaches.
88. Once a piece is done, I move on.
89. I always think the next step will be much better than what I have done before.
90. Of course, it never works that way, but it keeps me moving.
91. The problem of size and scale is crucial. When it's completed, it becomes obvious whether the scale is correct or not.
92. I have always called my three dimensional work "structures," because my thinking derives from the history of architecture rather than that of sculpture.
93. Minimal art went nowhere.
94. Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus.
95. The art of today is a lot grander and more opulent than before, but the process of art - thinking hasn't changed very much - it's the emphasis that has changed.
96. All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art.
97. "Sentences On Conceptual Art",pertain specifically to the art of the '60s, but they are pertinent to my thinking now.
98. I wouldn't delete or add anything.
99. When I wrote the "Sentences on Conceptual Art" the first one was that artists are not rational but leap to new ideas.
100. So, I hope to do that. (leap to new ideas)

LeWitt first executed Wall Drawing #260 in 1975 with white chalk. Today it is executed with water soluble crayon to eliminate the dust caused by chalk. Water soluble crayon looks like chalk with the added advantage of not easily rubbing off from passing traffic.

LeWitt's imagery consists of the basics of geometry - lines, curves, squares, rectangles, triangles and grids.

The piece is serial with pairs of arcs and straight lines in 190 different combinations. The use of serial ideas became LeWitt's vocabulary along with the basic forms which make a process of ideas.

Wall Drawing #260 - proceeds in a logical organic way and each development leads to the next.

Serial Project No 1 (ABCD) uses simple forms - the square and cube on a grid to product a logical system which is the work of art. The visual piece is the proof of the system.

It is difficult to understand Serial Project No 1 (ABCD) without understanding the system that produced the piece.

Sol LeWitt is involved with the idea. He doesn't care what it looks like but what it is.

"When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand, and execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art." - Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt was interested in building a conceptual system. He didn't start with the form, but with the idea that had a set of rules.

Once the idea was set loose the process took over - following the rules. The process determines the form by playing itself out.

Most of Sol LeWitts' systems were finite. The piece was finished when using all possible variations were completed. This kept them simple.

Once he started working the decisions were already made - letting the process produce the form.

LeWitt x 2

"LeWitt x 2 offers a unique perspective on the work of renowned Minimalist and Conceptualist Sol LeWitt, documenting the arc of his career alongside his personal collection of contemporary art.

LeWitt is one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. His geometric sculptures, groundbreaking wall drawings and striking works on paper have defined and pushed the limits of art-making for over 40 years.

During that time, LeWitt and his wife Carol have further contributed to the art world by compiling and safeguarding a collection of contemporary art, just as they encourage the next generation of artists.

LeWitt x 2 presents a selection of work from the LeWitt collection, featuring Carl Andre, Siah Armajani, Dan Flavin, Hans Haacke, Eva Hesse, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Mario Merz, Shirin Neshat, Adrian Piper and Robert Ryman.

This remarkable body of work demonstrates the dynamic dialogue between LeWitt and his esteemed contemporaries." Get your own copy of LeWitt x 2