Ideas and Execution | Chase Adams
Almost five years ago, I went to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCa) and saw Sol LeWitt’s installation there. He had created over 100 wall drawings across 27,000 square feet of space, made of three stories of narrow hallways and expansive rooms with drawings on all sides. The work is driven by shapes and lines; there was mathematical rigor to every drawing, inspired by geometry and simple rules. They are accompanied by a short description:
Wall Drawing 1180: Within a four-meter circle, draw 10,000 black straight lines and 10,000 black not straight lines. All lines are randomly spaced and equally distributed.
It’s common for artists to use geometry. It was the rigor that was so impressive. The descriptions of the artwork were no longer than a few paragraphs, and usually only one or two sentences. All precise and meticulous.
He started his first drawings with a series of parallel, straight lines. The work grew to include minimalist geometric shapes driven by straight lines, drawn with pencil or pen with exacting geometry. As his career progressed, he incorporated more color and complex patterns into his art; more bold lines, vibrant colors, irregular shapes, different materials. All driven by initial instructions which he followed meticulously.
