I recently had the opportunity to visit the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), which features modern and experimental exhibits ranging from video installations to trees growing upside down (which is actually working outside the museum's main entrance). One of the exhibits that I found most interesting from a graphic design perspective was "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective." Lewitt's unique approach to art focuses on the creation of the pieces... but not by him. Instead, those who install or purchase the art are responsible for creating it by following detailed instructions and diagrams.
The size of the art and the surface it is on can vary as well, allowing it to take on a life of its own depending on the space and person responsible for the drawing. If a piece is passed on to someone else, the original needs to be painted over, so it only exists in one place at a time. The MASS MoCA website has a great mini site that allows you to see all the drawings by grid or floorplan, as well as watch time lapse videos of the project that took 65 people and 6 months to complete. If you want to head over to MASS MoCA and see it for yourself, you have time... the exhibit will be up for at least 25 years.
I love Sol le Witt! Saw an exhibit at the SF MOMA a few years ago that featured his work; he really makes you think about lines, color, and space in a different way; like his sculptures of “2D” cubes – marvellous.
i have a strange connection to sol lewitt as back in 1960 when I was a 13 year old high school student the only way i could focus on listening to the teacher droning at the front of the class was to incessantly draw line-connection-to-point drawings all over my notebooks (nowadays they would call it “attention deficit disorder”) … well little did I know that on the other side of north america (i lived on the west side-pacific coast-canada) sol lewitt was doing the same thing in New York, that is, creating line-connection-to-point drawing projects that other people could also take part in creating…well, of course in the little parochial town where i lived then we had never heard of sol lewitt or anything remotely like him so of course my teacher would rant at me “all you ever do is doodle daddle all day long!!!” (Yup, you’re right on that, teach!)…anyway, my point (ha ha no pun intended!) is that it is reassuring now to find out that i was in such glorious company back in the early sixties as that of Sol Lewitt, even though I had no clue about it!
He’s a great imaginative guy!