It is certainly not rare to see art, architecture and graphic design combined together under one roof, but it is maybe less ordinary to see them reunited in an exhibition by just one artist. The event in question is "Sol LeWitt - Between the Lines" (until June 23, 2018) opening today at Milan's Fondazione Carriero.
Curated by Francesco Stocchi and Rem Koolhaas and organised in close partnership with the Estate of Sol LeWitt, the event marks the tenth death anniversary of Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) and is conceived as an attempt to start a dialogue between his works and the peculiarities of the rooms at the Carriero Foundation.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, to an immigrant Jewish family from Russia, as a child LeWitt attended art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. After graduating, he travelled to Europe, exploring the Old World and Grand Masters of the past.
In 1953, he moved to New York where he rented a studio on the Lower East Side, and attended lessons at the Cartoonists and Illustrators school (today, School of Visual Arts) and began collaborating with Seventeen magazine.
At the beginning of the '60s he started working at MoMA, where he met the artists Dan Flavin, Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold, and the future art critic Lucy Lippard.
LeWitt became interested in Russian constructivism, but the art movement that influenced him the most was the photography in series by Eadweard Muybridge, with his sequential studies of people and animals in motion, which LeWitt would quote in his works from the early 1960s.
His initial works with 3D structures appeared from the mid-to-late 1960s as a result of this interest in seriality, subsequently carried over to his prints, drawings on paper, and wall drawings.
The artist executed his first wall drawing in 1968 at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York – his systems of parallel lines traced directly on walls strengthened the flatness of the work and made it as two dimensional as possible.
In the late 1970s, right after his first retrospective at MoMA and following many exhibitions in Italy, LeWitt moved to Spoleto. In 1983, LeWitt's art was radically transformed when he began experimenting with India ink and gouache with colored inks, a reference to Italian art from the 1300s and 1400s.
The event in Milan features 7 famous Wall Drawings (executed in collaboration with young artists and students in Milan, under the close supervision of the Estate of Sol LeWitt), 15 sculptures such as Complex Form #34 and Inverted Spiraling Tower, and the photo series Autobiography with its square images arranged in grids and portraying objects of his everyday experience – books, tools, food, clocks, dishes and albums, and revolving around one principle – the adaptation of a work to the architecture surrounding it.
"Between The Lines" is indeed an experiment in erasing the division between architecture and art, challenging the concept of site-specificity.
The inspiration behind this exhibition (that will undoubtedly inspire with its minimalist grids and infinite patterns many graphic designers out there...) remains LeWitt's 1967 piece "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art".
In this essay the artist highlighted how the idea was more important than the execution, and attributed more relevance to the notion and the process rather than the object. The artist's task is indeed to formulate the project, whereas its execution can be entrusted to anyone, provided the instructions be respected. This means that the artist is a bit like the architect creating a building and then leaving its construction to others, but it is easy to apply the principles of this essays to our modern times and to technology as well - think for example about the open source concept (remember yesterday's post about digital fashion patterns that could be purchased and customised according to the consumer's needs?)
With this essay LeWitt paved the way for an idea of art and a way of working that became important for many generations to follow, while his works became immortal since they continuously renew themselves.
The event also encourages visitors to consider LeWitt's works as forms inserted into the space, taking shape midway between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional: at times their geometric regularity complements his wall drawings, at others it challenges the boundaries between wall paintings and sculptures, or creates continuity wth the architecture surrounding the pieces even though they weren't conceived for that particular space.
The Fondazione is located inside Casa Parravicini (Via Cino del Duca 4, Milan), a 15th century residence in a gothic style entirely built in terracotta bricks, with a round-arch entrance resting on stone jambs and an archivolt decorated with geometric shapes.
The institution also extends inside Palazzo Visconti, a building from the 17th century, so that the Fondazione is physically and metaphysically suspended in a space-time leap. The interiors of the building were restyled by Gae Aulenti in 1991, when Casa Parravicini served as the main offices for a private bank.
The exhibition space includes seven rooms: three on the first floor, another three on the second (all the rooms on these floors are simple in style, embellished with an original coffered ceiling from the 1400s), and a single spacious hall on the top level, which is located inside the adjacent Palazzo Visconti and has direct access to Casa Parravicini (the third floor walls and ceilings are decorated with frescoes from the early 1900s that imitate 17th century motifs).
In the exhibition spaces Wall Drawing #46 (1970) or 8 x 8 x 1 (1989) are conceived as architectural connectors, works employed to transform the visitors' perception of the space and alter the walls, extending their lines in different directions and creating new geometrical shapes and configurations. Inverted Spiraling Tower is ideally connected to 8 x 8 x 1 via a relationship that is not visible within the exhibition but becomes clearer from the outside, through the windows.
In "Between The Lines" the work of Sol LeWitt assumes therefore a sort of adhesive quality, becoming one with the architecture.
Sol LeWitt's fans who think they may not be able to catch up with this event should remember that, until 2033, all wall drawings by the artist will be on display in a solo show titled "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective" at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Image credits for this post
1.
Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #150: Ten thousand one-inch (2.5cm) lines evenly spaced on each of six walls, 1972
Black pencil
First drawn by: Sadayuki Kato,Kazuko Miyamoto, Ryo Watanabe
First installation: Finch College, New York, October 1972
Courtesy Collezione Panza, Mendrisio
Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #51: All architectural points connected by straight lines, 1970
Blue snap lines
First drawn by: Pietro Giacchi, Andrea Giamasso, Giulio Mosca
First installation: Galleria Sperone, Turin, June 1970
LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT
Courtesy Estate of Sol LeWitt
2.
Sol LeWitt
Complex Form #34, 1990
White painted wood
127 x 88,9 x 50,8 cm
Courtesy Estate Franz West
3.
Sol LeWitt
Structure with Standing Figure, 1963
Painted wood, black and white photographs, light bulb, electrical wiring
71,12x30,48x30,48 cm
Courtesy LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT
Sol LeWitt
Geometric Figure #9 (+), 1977
White painted wood
151x151x3 cm
Courtesy LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT
4, 5, 6 and 7.
Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #263: A wall divided into 16 equal parts with all one-, two-, three-, four- part combinations of lines in four
directions, 1975
Black pencil
First drawn by: Kazuko Miyamoto, Ryo Watanabe, Jo Watanabe, Qui Qui Watanabe
First installation: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, June 1975
Courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
8, 9 and 10.
Sol LeWitt
Autobiography, 1980
Black and white photographs mounted on paper
62 sheets, 30,5 x 55,9 cm each
Glenstone Museum Collection, Potamac, MD
Courtesy Estate of Sol LeWitt
11.
Sol LeWitt
Floor Structure (Well), 1963
Painted wood
133x61x61 cm
Courtesy LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT
Sol LeWitt
Untitled (B3 Model), 1966
Painted wood
35,6x35,6x35,6 cm
Courtesy Collection Paula Cooper, New York
Sol LeWitt
Early Wood Structure, 1962 ca.
Painted wood
20,6x18,4x18 cm
Courtesy Estate of Sol LeWitt e | and Pace Gallery
12. and 13.
Sol LeWitt
Wall Structure Black, 1962
Oil on canvas and painted wood
99,1x99,1x59,7 cm
Courtesy Estate of Sol LeWitt e | and Pace Gallery
14.
Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #150: Ten thousand one-inch (2.5cm) lines evenly spaced on each of six walls, 1972
Black pencil
First drawn by: Sadayuki Kato, Kazuko Miyamoto, Ryo Watanabe
First installation: Finch College, New York, October 1972
Courtesy Collezione Panza, Mendrisio
Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #51: All architectural points connected by straight lines, 1970
Blue snap lines
First drawn by: Pietro Giacchi, Andrea Giamasso, Giulio Mosca
First installation: Galleria Sperone, Turin, June 1970
LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT
Courtesy Estate of Sol LeWitt
15. and 16.
Sol LeWitt
8x8x1, 1989
Baked enamel on aluminum
207,01 x 45,72 x 45,72 cm
Courtesy Julie e | and Edward J. Minskoff Collection
Sol LeWitt
Wall Drawing #1104: All combinations of lines in four directions.
Lines do not have to be drawn straight (with a ruler), 2003
Black marker on mirror
First drawn by: Toon Verhoef
First installation: Edams Museum, Edam, NL, September 2003
Courtesy Estate of Sol LeWitt
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