LEWITT, Sol (Hartford,1928 - New York, 2007)Paragrapfs o Conceptual Art

Paragraphs on conceptual art

I will refer to the kind of art in which I am involved as conceptual art. In conceptual art the idea of concept is the most important aspect of the work. 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. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman. It is the objective of the artist who is concerned with conceptual art to make his work mentally interesting to the spectator, and therefore usually he would want it to become emotionally dry.
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What the work of art looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something if it has physical form. No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea. It is the process of conception and realization with which the artist is concerned. Once given physi cal reality by the artist the work is open to the perception of all, including the artist. (I use the word “perception” to mean the apprehension of the sense data, the objective understanding of the idea and simultaneously a subjective interpretation of both.) The work of art can only be perceived after it is completed.

Art that is meant for the sensation of the eye primarily would be called perceptual rather than conceptual. This would include most optical, kinetic, light and color art.

Since the functions of conception and perception are contradictory (one pre-, the other post-fact) the artist would mitigate his idea by applying subjective judgement to it. If the artist wishes to explore his idea thoroughly, then arbitrary or chance decisions would be kept to a minimum, while caprice, taste and other whimsies would be eliminated from the making of the art. The work does not necessarily have to be rejected if it does not look well. Sometimes what is initially thought to be awkward will eventually be visually pleasing.

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When an artist uses a multiple modular method he usually chooses a simple and readily available form. The form itself is of very limited importance; it becomes the grammar for the total work. In fact it is best that the basic unit be deliberately uninteresting so that it may more easily become an intrinsic part of the entire work. Using complex basic forms only disrupts the unity of the whole. Using a simple form repeatedly narrows the field of the work and concen sol lewitt paragraphs on conceptual art 13 14 trates the intensity to the arrangement of the form. This arrangement becomes the end while the form becomes the means.

Conceptual art doesn't really have much to do with mathematics, philosophy or any other mental discipline. The mathematics used by most artists is simple arithmetic or simple number systems. The philosophy of the work is implicit in the work and is not an illustration of any system of philosophy.

It doesn't really matter if the viewer understands the concepts of the artist by seeing the art. Once out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand the same thing in a different way.

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If the artist carries through his idea and makes it into visible form, then all the steps in the process are of importance. The idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product. All intervening steps—scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed work, models, studies, thought, conversations—are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.

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Conceptual art is made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than his eye or emotions. < .....>. Color, surface, texture, and shape only emphasize the physical aspects of the work. Anything that calls attention to and interests the viewer in this physicality is a deterrent to our understanding of the idea and is used as an expressive device. The conceptual artist would want to ameliorate this emphasis on materiality as much as possible or to use it in a paradoxical way. (To convert it into an idea.) This kind of art, then, should be stated with the most economy of means. Any idea that is better stated in two dimensions should not be in three dimensions. Ideas may also be stated with numbers, photographs, or words or any way the artist chooses, the form being unimportant.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) played a central role in the creation of the new radical aesthetics of the 1960s, which was in revolutionary opposition to the Abstract Expressionism of the New York school of the 1950s and 1960s.

LeWitt, like no other artist of his generation, has always upheld the importance of the concept, of the idea, that underlies the artistic work, relegating the art object to the background, to the point of total insignificance. Apart from his early original works on paper, his later works were always executed by others according to his clear and strict instructions. He was one of the first consistent proponents of conceptual art, his paper Sentences on Conceptual Art (1969) continues to be regarded as one of the reference texts on conceptual art.

Born in 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA after earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University, he began working as a graphic designer for I.M. Pei's architectural firm in New York. In 1960 he accepted a job at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the book counter, where his colleagues included Robert Ryman, Dan Flavin and Robert Mangold, with whom he began to discuss new ideas about art.

In the course of his artistic career LeWitt participated in seminal group exhibitions, including in 1966 ‘Primary Structures' at the Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA and 10, at the Dwan Gallery, New York, together with leading minimalist artists (Carl Andre, Jo Baer, Dan Flavin, Don Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Smithson, and Michael Steiner); DOCUMENTA IV, Kassel, 1968 and Harald Szeeman's seminal exhibition When Attitude Becomes For, Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland, 1969, in which Eva Hesse , Gary Kuehn , Robert Smithson , Alighiero Boetti , Joseph Beuys , Bruce Naumann , Hanne Darboven , Mario Merz , Hans Haacke, among others, participated.

A major retrospective of Lewitt's work was organised by the San Francisco Museum of Art in 2000, later transferred to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL, USA and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His works can be found in major museum collections, including: Tate Collection, London, UK; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia; Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA; MoMA, New York, NY, USA.