LeWitt's Ark: In Memory of Sol LeWitt (1928-2007)

Author(s): Rosalind Krauss

Source: October, Vol. 121, New Vertov Studies (Summer, 2007), pp. 111-113
Published by: MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40368483
Accessed: 15-01-2016 06:34 UTC

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LeWitt'sArk

ROSALIND KRAUSS

It is appropriateto thinkof Sol LeWitt(1928-2007) as a latter-day

Noah,
to
distincalled
Renaissance
arts
the
that
half
of
the
disegno
pictorial
roundingup
- therepresentation
of
on linefromtheotherhalf- colore
guishitsconcentration
on
travelers
the
Noah
saved
from
which
flood
texture.
The
and
rich
atmosphere
hisArkwas,indeed,concertedto washawaythatlinearhalfof pictorialexpression,as so-calledColorFieldPaintingattackedlinearcontour'straditional
hiving
lateralspreadsofchroma.
thesecellsintounbroken,
ofspillsofcolor,bydissolving

PartI-IV,#1-24,
#1085:Drawing
SolLeWitt.
WallDrawing
Series-Composite,

Dia: Beacon,RiggioGalleries.
A+B (detail). 1968/2003.Installation
vieiv,
Photograph
Artists
Estate
Sol

2007
LeWitt/
(ARS),NewYork.
RightsSociety
of
byBilljacobson.
OCTOBER 121,Summer
2007, pp. 111-113. 2007 RosalindKrauss.

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OCTOBER

112

LeWitt'scommitmentto line was not so much a matterof contour'scompartmentalization of a flat field. Rather, it was an investmentin that half of the
twentieth-century's
practice of drawingthat Benjamin Buchloh calls matrix,to
it
from
While gestureregistersthe artist'sbodilyand psychodistinguish
gesture.
sexual energy,matrixis farless emotive;its intellecto-conceptualapproach is to
the object ratherthan the subject of the linear field- whethercanvas, paper, or
plasterwall. The ordinarygrid is such a matrix,or any set of directionsforlinear
inscription(such as LeWitt's"Ten thousand lines one inch long evenlyspaced on
six walls each of differingarea") that is then scrupulouslyand repetitivelyexecuted. The evocativebeauty LeWittwrestedfromthese exiguous means earned
him the gratitudeof manyartistswhose workwould not have been possible without him; Mel Bochnerwas certainlyone of these,Daniel Buren mightbe counted
as another.

Above
andfacing
Comeand Go. Drawing
Beckett,
Harper's
page:LeWitt.
fora playbySamuel
Artists
1969.2007Estate
Bazaar,August
(ARS),NewYork.
Rights
Society
ofSolLeWitt/

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LeWitt's
Ark

113

In speakingof LeWitt,Bochnerstressedhis deep connectionto music,

in a massivemusicallibrary
fromwhichMartyFeldmanused to borrow
resulting
records.For bothof them,musicalstructure's
permutations
provideda foundationfortheirthinking
aboutserialism.
Anotherrelationto theexampleofmusic
wasLeWitt's
worksforothersto "percreating
adoptionoftheroleofa composer,
artis
form"or execute.LeWitt'sexampleand supportforEva Hesse'semerging
anothercase of therewards
ofmatrix.The extraordinary
linearhiveLeWittconBazaar
ceivedforthepublication
ofSamuelBeckett's
playComeandGo,in Harper's
must
be
counted
the
interests
on
LeWitt's
(August1969)
part that
among
extendedbeyondtheartworld,and in Beckett's
case mightreston a connection
- comparable
- itstaciturnity,
thewriter
feltfora formofexpression
itsintelligence
tohisown.

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