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Property from a Private Collection Clarity, beauty, simplicity, logic, openness. The words, which come to mind in beginning to describe the work of Sol LeWitt resonate with essential aesthetic and intellectual values. His works are straightforward and legible. Yet, upon closer observation and consideration, even those that initially appear direct and obvious reveal complex subtlety in decision making." (Gary Garrels, cited in exh. cat., Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective, 2000-01, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, p.23) Structures of Perfection Sol LeWitt's work exists between Minimalism and Conceptual Art. His structures grant primary importance to both the form of the grid and the immateriality of the idea. An essential exploration and evocation of perfection, LeWitt's art is only truly realized in the mind; its physical reifications are mere models of his concepts. LeWitt brings Platonic forms into a radically modern context; and today, in our virtual cyber world, LeWitt's pioneering investigations of the ethereal are more relevant than ever. LeWitt's mathematical systems, geometric forms, raw industrial material, and factory production, pushed Minimalism just short of total self-elimination, laying the groundwork for Conceptual artists to take the object into the intellectual realm of language, knowledge, and science. In his seminal essay, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," published in Artforum in 1967, Le Witt argued that the most important aspect of a work of art is the idea behind it, rather than its physical form: "The idea becomes the machine that makes the art," LeWitt writes. By this logic, the work of art continues to exist whether or not the forms are installed. LeWitt's conception of the grid, would also prove to have a profound impact on the abstract painting of the 1980s. In Serial Project (Set B), 1966, LeWitt explores the possibilities of the square, from which the artist derives grids, cubes, and rectangular prisms. A subset of his many serial projects to date, as the title suggests, this installation unfolds from a suite of straightforward, logical propositions. LeWitt's use of painted aluminum in this series works to minimize the apparent surface texture. The project follows a series of four-variations (labeled A,B,C, and D), beginning with a flat grid and open cubes and ending with three-dimensional closed volumes. LeWitt referred to the concept behind this and other contemporary works as a "grammar," and, indeed, Serial Project (Set B) is inspired by and indebted to the structuralist project which posited meaning as a decipherable, universal structure. Yet, LeWitt here subverts the neat structuralist economy of signified and signifier: The physical cubes are meant to signify LeWitt's idea of the cubes (the real signified); yet, it is also LeWitt's idea that signifies the conditions and parameters of the object (the real signified). Not only can the aesthetic hallmarks of LeWitt's Minimalist vision -- seriality and the geometric form -- be seen in Wall-Floor #1, 1976, this work also outlines a new direction in LeWitt's art, in which the systems shaping the object become the work itself. Wall-Floor is part of a series of structures conceived in permutations of cubic units to develop a sequence of related works. Each of the units has exactly the same dimensions, yet the shape and structure of each sculpture varies to form individualized, distinct configurations. As a conceptual deconstruction of the three-dimensional grid, this work rests on the floor but the application of white paint seems to visually integrate the piece with the wall. Here, LeWitt's impulse toward spatial mapping is matched by his fascination with the permutations of form, and his gesture toward measurement suggests that space may be qualified rationally, and consequently possessed by the viewer. Wall-Floor #1, 1976 is as much a part of the floor and the wall as LeWitt's art is generally a part of Minimalism and Conceptualist Art. The title of one of critic Donald Kuspit's essays about LeWitt's work, "Sol LeWitt The Look of Thought," is the clearest definition of LeWitt's work to date. As Kuspit explains, "In LeWitt, there is no optical induction; there is only deduction by rules which have an axiomatic validity" (Donald Kuspit, "Sol LeWitt: The Look of Thought" Art in America, LXIII, September-October, 1975, p. 48). LeWitt managed to sculpt the absolute and the true. And his physical examples of his mental masterpieces allow us to see the invisible. And however exacting and perfect as LeWitt's art may be, it constantly provokes. As Lucy Lippard explains: "Only his work can be said to articulate the moment in artistic thinking when a structure opens to questioning and reorganizes itself according to a new meaning which is nevertheless the meaning of the same structure, but taken to a new level of complexity" (Lucy Lippard in Sol LeWitt, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, p. 27).

Sol LeWitt (B. 1928)

Serial Project (Set B)

Details

Sol LeWitt (B. 1928)
Serial Project (Set B)
enamel on steel
14½ x 63¾ x 63¾ in. (36.9 x 162 x 162 cm.)
Executed in 1966. This work is accompained by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Provenance

Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf
Private Collection, London
Salvaltore Ala, Milan
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1985

Special notice

On occasion, Christie's has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the sale of certain lots consigned for sale. This will usually be where it has guaranteed to the Seller that whatever the outcome of the auction, the Seller will receive a minimum sale price for the work. This is known as a minimum price guarantee. This is such a lot.

Lot Essay

Sol LeWitt, CUBE STRUCTURES BASED ON NINE MODULES, 1976-1977. (These structures were made by K. Miyamoto, A. Hagihara, J. Tsuji, M. Harvey, and others.) © 2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Page from the plate section of Camilla Gray, The Great Experiment: Russian Art 1863-1922 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962.)

Sol LeWitt in his studio, New York, circa 1964. © 2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Installation view of the LeWitt exhibition Structures, John Weber Gallery, New York, 1977. Photo by John A. Ferrari.

Sol LeWitt's studio, New York 1970. Photo by Gianfranco Gorgoni.

Serial Project (Set B)

Lot Essay

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