Questioning the art object 2: Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt, Wall drawing 462, first drawn 1986. On four walls, one room, arcs 4 inches (10 cm) wide, from the midpoints of four sides, drawn with alternating bands of gray and black ink wash.

Review of last session…Conceptual Art.

• Occurred as an avant-garde movement in 1960s/70s. Also called ‘Idea art’; ‘Post-object art’; ‘Dematerialised art’ (referring to the ‘dematerialisation’ or

disappearance, of the art object.)

• A questioning of the emphasis on the aesthetic, and on the nature of the art object, made possible the earlier work of Duchamp’s readymades.

• Was it art? The conceptual art endeavour was about questioning art…about the importance of an idea or concept. Various artists approached this in different ways,

and there was an overlap with other movements: Fluxus; Minimalism; Pop Art.

• Often involved language & text within the work – or sometimes it was the ENTIRE work. (Use of text started with Cubist collages…on through Dada & Surrealism)

• The idea of documentation was important – the documentation of an idea; or else the photographic or video documentation of an ephemeral work (e.g. Marjorie

Strider’s ‘Street Works’.) The documentation itself could be non-artistic: just simple, basic documentation.

However, much of it was not good to look at … why on earth would you want to create art that is boring to look at? This is an important aspect of art-making practice to consider: the intentions and purpose of the artist.

Conceptual Art wasn’t intended to necessarily give you any visual pleasure . It was a proposition – an idea on paper, designed, not to please you visually, but rather to make a statement about art. Other movements that were associated with Conceptual art, or overlapped in terms of their concerns or their approach, were more interested in the formal aspects of the art (eg Pop Art, Minimalism.) All of them questioned the art object in some way, and all avoided personalised expression.Ed Ruscha, (US, b. 1937), Phillips 66, Flagstaff Arizona, from Twenty six gasoline stations, published book with b & w Photographs, 1962

This was a series of photos of every petrol station along Route 66 highway. It was put together in a cheap publication which deliberately had no ‘art-book’ beauty about it – it was a simple record, a document, of his travels along this particular road. How might we consider this in the light of, say, Impressionism?

Sol LeWitt (U.S.1928 – 2007) was one of the artists who defined Conceptual Art, in his writings in the late 1960s. He said : “…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…” How could we describe this kind of statement? How could we contrast it with what we know about Abstract Expressionism?

LeWitt, Drawing #146, All two-part combinations of blue arcs from corners and sides and blue straight, not straight and broken lines., September 1972. Blue crayon, dimensions variable.

This work has been drawn, in crayon, directlyonto the walls of the gallery in which it wasexhibited. What consequences does this approachHave?

LeWitt worked with sculpture, drawings and printmaking. He was especially interested in seriality (working in series) and working logically, letting an idea totally work itself through. He regarded the SYSTEM of working out where the various variations of shapes and angles would go, as the artwork. What we see on the wall is the RESULT OF THE ARTWORK, not the artwork itself.

His wall works were created entirely by his technical crew. He didn’t do any of the mark-making work himself. He wrote the instructions only. The drawings were with coloured crayon, chalk (now replaced by water soluble crayon) and pencil.

Working instructions for work installed at Art Gallery of NSW in 1977.

Because the artwork is the idea and theWorking out of the instructions, like a readymade, it is not unique, therefore it can be created in several galleries at the one time. Also, it can be recreated years after it was first created.

LeWitt was trained in graphic design and worked in the printing industry before breaking into art. His interest lay in mathematical and logical grids, arcs, circles, cubes, squares. He was interested in the anonymity created by lack of any personal gesture; or subjective input.

Untitled from Squares with a different line direction in each half square, etching, image 18 x 18cm, 1971

Pieces such as Wall drawing 88 bring in another dimension of LeWitt’s ideas. He wrote out specific instructions: the technician was directed to draw ‘non-straight lines’, that is, lines by hand (rather than with a ruler, say) and keep going to fill in a grid of a certain size. This kind of work complicates our conceptual framework, with this addition of the technician’s manual skill to consider. It means that, even though broadly speaking each piece as outlined is the same, wherever it is produced, (because the instructions are identical, and the idea is the artwork, remember) in fact elements such as this mean that every one of such pieces are unique and variable. There is an inbuilt contradiction here, that is not formally recognised…or is it?

Wall drawing 88, (detail), drawing on wall, 1971, re-created 2008.

Wall drawing 797, 1995 ( here being recreated, 2009) – another example of instructions whichInclude the hand of the technician or assistant/s)

These drawn wall works are big. They are impressive – monumental, in fact. And they are in fact visually interesting, or even overwhelming, (despite the fact that LeWitt claimed that what it looked like was irrelevant. ) He has deliberately contradicted this impressive nature of the scale, by making them ephemeral. This forces us as audiences to ‘cope’ with this contradiction. It makes us conscious of it. It makes us think. (Damn.)

The whole fact of using the technique of drawing, also, is contradictory. Drawing was traditionally something more private; or used for studies or sketches working up to a fully resolved oil painting or sculpture. However here, drawing takes on an almost heroic role in the art institution.

Also, there is no hierarchy within the work itself…no figure vs. ground, as we traditionally expect from an artwork (no matter how distorted the figure may be) or more important vs. less important areas of the work. (We saw this lack of hierarchy last session with Jackson Pollock’s Abstract Expressionist work, too. )

The scale of LeWitt’s wall works, and his cube sculptures, relate in a certain way to the body of the viewer, (rather than simply the ‘retinal’ or, your eyes.) This was called Minimal Art. Typically such art avoids personal expressiveness (such as brushstrokes, for instance) and uses industrially created forms, generally geometric and straight (eg cubes, LeWitt’s favourite.)

Serial Project 1 ABCD, 1966. Baked enamel on steel units over baked enamel on aluminum, (50.8 x 398.9 x 398.9 cm

The idea is for the viewer to be ‘immersed’, in a way, by the field of objects, shapes, and lines. The viewer responds, not to a single object, but to them all, both singly and in relation to each other (e.g. the spaces BETWEEN the works as well.)

Five modular structures, (sequential permutations on the number 5, enamel paint on wood, each structure 62.00 x 98.00 x 62.00 cm, 1972

Each of these structures occupy the same footprint on the floor but their height varies according to a specific system. This logical approach engages the viewer in a particular way.

Installation at MCA Sydney 1998 – acrylic paint, series of works along wall responding to the structures within the space, but still doing so in a logical and expressionless manner.

The fact of responding to the siteMeans again that this work would have been unique.

ResourcesArt Gallery of New South Wales: http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/__data/page/13844/Kaldornotes_Lewitt.pdf

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: http://www.sfmoma.org/artthink/lessonintro.asp?lessonid=29&lessoncategoryid=2&menu=ahttp://www.sfmoma.org/about/press/press_news/releases/335

The artists.org: http://the-artists.org/artistsbymovement/Post-Painterly-Abstraction

Sol LeWitt’s ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, 1967: from TUFTS College: http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fah188/sol_lewitt/paragraphs%20on%20conceptual%20art.htm

Sol LeWitt’s ‘Sentences on Conceptual Art’, 1969: http://www.altx.com/vizarts/conceptual.html

Postmodernism in art: http://www.aristos.org/whatart/ch14.htmSydney Festival on John Baldessari installation: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2011/Family/John-Baldessari-Your-Name-in-Lights/Guggenheim Museum on Sol LeWitt: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Sol%20LeWitt&page=1&f=Name&cr=1

Examining the exam…

Q: Mary Cassatt was a wealthy American woman who lived, studied and worked in France. The urban scenes that fill the canvases of male painters in the late 19th century were off-limits to her. Use the cultural frame to identify some aspects of Cassatt’s work. Refer to Plate 1 in your response.

PLATE 1: Mary Cassatt, 1844–1926, USA The Bath, 1891/2 Oil on canvas, 100 × 66 cm.