Conceptual Art

Clarity, beauty, playfulness. Simplicity, logic, openness. The words that come to mind when describing the work of Sol LeWitt resonate with essential aesthetic and intellectual values. His works are straightforward and legible. Yet, upon closer observation and consideration, even those that initially appear direct and obvious reveal complex subtlety in decision-making. Intellectual substance is paired with visual delight, both of which seep into one's consciousness. LeWitt is one of the key artists of the 1960s. His work bridges Minimal and Conceptual art, movements that abandoned the emphasis on psychological content and gestural form typifying Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s. In a seminal text in written in 1967 titled "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," LeWitt emphasized his view of art: "No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea," and, "When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art."

Some exhibitions:

Sol LeWitt, who was born in Connecticut in 1928, is one of the most influential artists alive today. In the catalog for his 1978 retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Bernice Rose, Curator of Drawings, says that his innovative work drawing directly on walls "was as important for drawing as Pollock's use of the drip technique had been for painting in the 1950s."
"Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach."

Sol LeWitt, 1969

Although he has worked extensively in drawing and printmaking, he is usually considered to be primarily a sculptor. LeWitt's most characteristic sculpture works are based on connected open cubes and have titles like "Modular Wall Structure" and "Double Modular Cube." Because he works with modules and systems, and his early wall drawings are based on grids, he is sometimes described as a Minimal artist, but his work, especially his recent work, is usually colorful and often quite complex. It is also optimistic and beautiful.
LeWitt began exhibiting in New York in the early 1960s and since then has had many exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Holland; the Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, the Netherlands; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

In addition to his 1978 major retrospective, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has given him a print retrospective in 1995. A large retrospective of wall drawings, sculpture, and works on paper is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through May, 2000, and will travel to Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. ...

(PLease Login to see the complete biography.)