Sol LeWitt's wall drawings (paula Cooper Repetition - 1960-1975)

I like Sol Lewitt’s (1928-2007) wall drawings, a project he began in the 60's, and in particular his late scribble wall drawings, the last project of the kind which he began in 2005. I like them because they resist anything I will try to say here about them, that is, they resist interpretation, meaning etc.,. I saw some of them at DIA and MoMa in the past. I like their size, the immediacy of the actual drawing on the naked wall, its flatness , its “obviousness”. They look intricate and complex yet they are simple, being based on principles of geometric measurements, repetition, sequencing with occasional openings for chance. They invite one to wonder about the “process” of their making rather than their “completeness”; how was it made, rather than what it is or suppose to be. A set of LeWitt’s instructions or specifications for drawing the wall supports this approach. It emphasizes the distanced position of the artist and the spectator from the work and at the same time invites a direct accessibility to the work and to its process of making. Get yourself to a wall, take a pencil, follow instructions, draw... I read somewhere that LeWitt was much influenced by Edweard Mubridge, an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and in motion-picture. In the 1880s, Muybridge produced over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion, capturing what the human eye could not distinguish as separate movements. He is most famous for his series of repetitious stills of a running man or a galloping horse. Repetition as a working principle characterizes LeWitt’s wall drawings. Utilizing simple and impersonal geometric forms, exploring repetition and variations of a basic form or line, becomes a way to achieve complexity. Repetition not only brings out the essence of the very repeated element but becomes the form in itself. Like minimalist music the “final” composition is IN the repetition itself, in these endless successions of attempts “towards”, rather then attempts to a “perfection”(I’m trying). And repetition as a working principle is in the very method LeWitt developed; he supplied sets of specific instructions, by which his works could and should be executed by others rather than by himself. Repetition here again questions the uniqueness of the work. It puts to the test values like originality and authenticity as well as notions of timelessness and singularity of a work of art. By the way, Paula Cooper gallery (repetition: 1960-1975) was the first to install LeWitt’s wall in the 60's. But back to scribble wall drawings, a series, begun by LeWitt in 2005, in which the draftsmen apply graphite to the walls using a scribbling technique. The scribbling occurs at six different densities, which are indicated on the artist’s diagrams and then mapped out in string on the surface of the wall. The gradations of scribble density produce a continuum of tone that implies three dimensions. Some of the drawings form a pipe like resemblance that is questioned by exposing the flatness of the drawing against the wall in a variety of ways. The most ambitious of these drawings was commissioned as a long term wall drawing by the Albert Knox gallery (Buffalo, NY) in 2006. Le Witt chose the wall site to be in the main stairwell of the 20's modernist-industrialist building. The drawing covers 2,200 square feet of wall surface. It took 15 draft people to work for 5,000 hours on the project. I like these drawings the most, maybe because of the scribble form that calls for more freedom on the part of the drafts people. Maybe because of the tension between the free hand of the draftsman and the instruction, maybe because they seem to merge with the surrounding architecture in the most effective way (definitely in the case of Albert-knox gallery) maybe because of the personal-collective nature of the project and maybe because all of the above. Robert Storr places these late wall drawings in relation to their predecessors: “…these last drawings…issue from the same source as all that came before, anticipating nothing, but instead embodying a state of simultaneous presence and absence, immediacy and immanence, physicality and indeterminacy.” I’ll try to sum up; Lewitt’s walls are simple yet intricate, monumental yet accessible”intimate” and direct, essentially reproducible and reproducible by ANY team of draftsmen yet they stay unique. They make you think of nature of lines, designs and general mark making; form and how forms come to be. They make you think of time differently; time of production: time of absorption in the very act of creating them and looking into them. That is, they are “external” and “internal” at the same time. Finally, they make you question the place and role of the artist in the making of his art. I like this questioning of borders and the implied open invitation for art making. I would love to take part in one of these installations! Watch this video if you’re into the process... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnKgSWugUWU www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnKgSWugUWU http://www.google.com/search?q=albright%20knox%20sol%20lewitt&tbs=sbi%3AAMhZZisVe2bflYEE64S_1H8LeZ2PJd8R5RYcv3kVTBcU5gzQkC3rUY1DPSmUfyk5_1egOAul9mK5TVGc2f0PufRvQS2lAmOuNMCt99ySfFozVCfC-W3YV9O2MTSRXHh629oTQL81Bp7kmWLI8hNRW12w6lv3F0grnVNOiIH62ZUfmCr62IPqPwMigstETGxwdMUww2DjAkS6Eu01Jgsi8Wo0vny8KV516wIQ&ei=BmgTUeilI4WC8ATzo4GIAQ&ved=0CAoQiBwwAA&biw=770&bih=345