You Too Can Own an Original LeWitt

A short piece about Minimalism in relation to Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall Drawings’…

Sol LeWitt is seen as the primary influence upon both the Minimal and Conceptual art movements in 1960s USA and wrote a manifesto for Minimal Art… which was not a long document.

Much of LeWitt’s art is superficially similar to the Suprematist aesthetics of Malevich, though these two approaches are ideologically at odds. Whereas Malevich used simple, non-representational geometrics to approach grand spiritual and social concepts, LeWitt attempted to create art that was nothing more than what the viewer directly experiences in their encounter with the work.

This was the essence of Minimalism. LeWitt wanted art that referenced nothing but the work itself — a contained reality of the piece. A thing that was both signifier and the signified in one. Art that was not a symbol or indicator of something else, yet achieved the satisfying grace and gravitas of other ‘high art’.

Like Duchamp, LeWitt saw, not the end-product, but the concept behind the art as of prime importance and described the concept as a ‘machine’ that creates the art. He then became fascinated with the idea of transmitting the concept in a pure form which could then be interpreted and re-interpreted by others.