Sol LeWitt was one of the most camera-shy figures in modern art. His wall drawings – big, bold and iconic – said more than either he or any critic could about the state of modern art at the end of the 20th Century.
LeWitt was one of the early minimalists. Then he declared the genre dead and moved on, creating conceptual art. In doing so, he advanced the notion that separates the creation of a work from its execution.
Nothing So Conventional as a Canvas
The exhibition “Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective,” at Mass MoCA, took 24 of LeWitt’s assistants and 30 students from Yale, Williams College, the Massachusetts College of Liberal arts and other institutions across the country to paint the 104 wall drawings on display. They cover a three-story structure – nearly an acre of space – with line and colors that draw the eye and capture all the senses. The exhibition will run for the next 25 years.
By expressing his point of view that the idea-the planning and decision making – are primary and the execution secondary – LeWitt rejected the notion that art is unique and precious. He also justified the use of assistants to carry out his idea.
The fact of the matter is that, in one manner or another, assistants had always been a part of process –Old Masters’ circles, contemporary collaborations. But LeWitt formalized it, without apology or covertness.
32 Squares On a Wall Beget a New Form
In 1968, LeWitt conceived his first wall drawing and brought it to life on the walls of the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York City. Drawing in black pencil, LeWitt produced 32 identically-sized squares. In them he drew combinations of the four straight lines that composed the work’s visual vocabulary. The serialized lines – vertical, horizontal, diagonal right to left or left to right – identified all the possible ways in which the four elements could be combined in a series of two.
Although LeWitt executed this drawing himself, he quickly turned the process over to others, just as a musician guided by a composer’s score gives direction to the individual, the ensemble or the orchestra.
Within a year, he had described nine more wall drawings with language and clear diagrams for sites Los Angeles, Düsseldorf and Rome, and left them to be realized by eager assistants. In 1969, he produced “Wall Drawing 11,” again at the Paula Cooper Gallery. This is the earliest work included in the MASS MoCA exhibit.
A year later, LeWitt, perhaps influenced by an early stint in the offices of I.M. Pei, broadened his concept to include architecture in his drawings. “Wall Drawing #51. All architectural Points connected by straight lines” was drawn with a contractor’s blue chalk snap line. It has since been executed in numerous buildings across the globe. In each case, the resulting combination and length of lines is subtly different, depending on the specifics of the architectural circumstances.
Primary Colors and a Visual Vocabulary
By adding three primary colors, LeWitt greatly expanded the possible permutations of his four straight lines and increased the visual impact. He also expanded the visual vocabulary to exceed combinations of straight lines and began investigating other ways in which lines could fill an entire wall.
LeWitt broadened his materials and his colors grew ever bolder. He specified the use of latex paints, India inks, Pelican water colors and Lascaux light-fast acrylic paints and washes. Ironically, some of those infused with acrylics he later described as “raucous and vulgar.”
LeWitt also devised a system of communications that could easily be read by assistants. For example an intense single color was RRRR (red, red, red, red). A mixed color might be YBBGG (yellow, blue, blue, gray, gray.) As drawings assistants were forced to develop not only careful measuring and drafting skills but also preparatory projection.
Sadly, Sol LeWitt, the acknowledged founder of Conceptual Art, passed away in April 2007. Fortunately, he lived long enough to know that the project was fully funded and underway.
