Sol LeWitt at Mass MoCA@Art

Holland Cotter writes:

Sol LeWitt often said that beauty was not the point of his art, but the MASS MoCA installation of the wall pieces the artist designed between 1969 and 2007 is pretty gorgeous.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

And no art, we suddenly see, is better suited to meet hard economic times. Most of the materials used in the wall drawings are five-and-dime simple: pencils, colored ink, crayons, brushes, paper.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Their visual effects can be complex, but their language is plain: lines, colors, clean surfaces, the basics of grade-school art class. No wonder they feel welcoming: they take us back to the past before they take us somewhere else.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Within those essentials, there’s diversity. The lines come straight and curved; they resolve into geometric shapes or splinter and fight. In many cases, they simply stream on, parallel and continuous, from floor to ceiling, and wall edge to wall edge.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Early drawings from 1970s might look mathematical or scientific, expressions of an American mania for measuring and surveying, if their logic wasn’t so batty. As it is, they turn the very idea of calculation into a game. They connect dots, but to no purpose. They turn space into a walk-in cat’s cradle.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

By the 1980s, though, color had replaced, or at least equaled line as a primary element. And the entire chromatic spectrum was brought into play.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Although Mr. LeWitt came up with the initial designs for the drawings, his relationship to the work was from that point on largely hands-off. He wrote brief technical instructions for how each piece should be done: firm but easy-to-follow recipes with an occasional sweet-to-taste allowance.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Although Mr. LeWitt came up with the initial designs for the drawings, his relationship to the work was from that point on largely hands-off. He wrote brief technical instructions for how each piece should be done: firm but easy-to-follow recipes with an occasional sweet-to-taste allowance.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Then he hired artists to execute them. He personally trained some of these artists in his methods, and expected those artists to train others, who would, stretching on through generations, train others in their turn. The work didn’t require exceptional talent or expensive schooling, just straightforward artisan skills and patient attention. If a drawing was done correctly that was enough.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Mr. LeWitt’s work is, famously, about ideas before all else. He was one of the first artists to formally define Conceptual Art as a phenomenon. And he was among first to make work that downplayed the traditional art object, with its associations of individual genius, exchange value, and physical permanence -- in favor of utopian proposals and collective visions.

Photo: Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

@Source: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/05/arts/1205-LEWI_index.html