Sol lewitt_conceptual art_book art

Sol LeWitt_Conceptual Art_Book Art

The American artist Sol LeWitt (1928 – 2007) was a formative figure in Minimal art and is considered one of the most important representatives as well as the co-founder of American Conceptual art. The term “Conceptual art” arises directly from LeWitt, who in his so-called “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” and “Sentences on Conceptual Art” created a substantial impetus in the contemporary art discourse:

“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 works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations – are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.” (Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, Artforum, Juni 1967)

In LeWitt’s objects, wall paintings and drawings, the concept of the work stood on par with its form and material. He was fascinated by the phenomenon of analytical variations of forms and shapes, but he was even more interested in the infinite multeity of systems of order.

LeWitt’s visual conception has close links with Minimal art, but LeWitt goes a step further: He stresses the serial structure and considers the idea as the essential part of an artistic work. Whether an object in a space (LeWitt preferred the term “structures”), wall drawings, or in his artist books – the idea was always more important than its physical elaboration. This is the pivotal moment of Conceptual art – the dematerialization of art, its disengagement from the physical work.

The first conceptual art exhibition Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art was curated in 1966 by Mel Bochner. In addition to Dan Flavin, Carl Andre and Eva Hesse, there were also contributions by Sol LeWitt. The exhibition includes

drawings, sketches and notes, which, as copies and collages, were laid out in a large black folder on a white pedestal in the middle of an empty space. In looking through and reflecting on the voluminous folder the “work” already existed as an intellectual process.

This describes very vividly how LeWitt, in this period, made the transition from the object based and abstract visual dimension of Minimalism to the purely intellectual reception of a Conceptual art work. Although his work had not completely dematerialized, it passed more and more into text form: the combinative structure of alphabet, letter, drawing. The visualized object receives its central significance in his intellectual imagination.

“I became interested in making books, starting about 1965, when I did the Serial Project #1, deciding that I needed a small book to show how the work could be understood and how the system worked. From that time I began to do books as works in themselves, not as catalogues… Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.” (Sol LeWitt, im Interview mit S. Ostrow, Bomb Magazine No. 85, 2003)

The reasons why Sol LeWitt and his colleagues from the mid-60s turned to the artist book as a new medium are diverse: for instance, there was a need of Conceptual art (as well as the Minimal and Land Art) to break out of the conservative art market. The book serves as an ideal medium for extending the realm of traditional presentation in the exhibition space.