ON VIEW

Description

This work is a bold, large-scale mural, or “wall drawing,” to use the term preferred by the artist, Sol LeWitt. It was painted directly onto the surface of two separate walls, flanking a large expanse of glass, in the Currier Museum’s Winter Garden. Brightly colored blocks flow in horizontal bands or in a swooping, serial arc. The work is composed of alternating, individual segments painted in acrylic using a brilliant, saturated palette of three primary colors (blue, red, and yellow) and three secondary colors (orange, green, and purple). The segments were painted according to the artist’s exacting specifications, as detailed in diagrams outlining the application of sequential layers of paint. The variously colored segments are arranged in repeated modular units according to two distinct strategies, with the serial arc superimposed upon the horizontal bands.


Creation of this installation was supervised by two drafters from the artist’s studio; the work was meticulously executed by a team of local artists over the course of one month. The artist gave the work a final name and number upon its completion: Wall Drawing #1255: Whirls and twirls (Currier) .


Context and Analysis

This work was commissioned by and designed for the Currier Museum shortly before the artist’s death in 2007. It is one of more than 1,200 such works by LeWitt, the body of work for which he is best remembered. LeWitt was one of the leading pioneers of Conceptual Art and a founder of Minimalism. His artistic practice questioned ideas surrounding art’s relationship to permanence, the role of the artist, and the nature of art itself. Placing emphasis on conception, rather than execution, LeWitt stated that “the idea becomes the machine that makes the art.” 1Much like an architect, he created propositions for works, such as this one, that could be physically carried out or could equally well remain unrealized; either way, they would constitute unique and autonomous works of art.


Many of LeWitt’s wall paintings were made by teams of enlisted artists, minus the artist’s own hand, just as musicians are guided by a composer’s score without the necessity for the composer’s participation or presence in the performance. LeWitt’s instructions always allowed room for interpretation. He believed that “all of the parts were only the result of the basic idea that each individual part was equally important, and that all parts were equal—nothing hierarchical.” 2This reflects his notion of artistic authorship as collective and participatory.


The “whirls and twirls” motif found in this work and other wall drawings of the same period shows the increasingly expansive and playful character of LeWitt’s wall drawings. His earliest wall drawings were linear compositions executed solely in graphite. This particular work is specific to the museum’s architecture, with the colorful undulations “moving” across a glass divide.


LeWitt was profoundly influenced by experiments in locomotion and serialism, particularly those conducted by photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the 1800s. For example, Muybridge made studies of men running. LeWitt once remarked about these that “as the Muybridge was a narrative of a man running so the combinations of a serial work function as a narrative also.” 3 LeWitt’s wall paintings show the influence of Muybridge’s time-lapse studies.


Connections

Although Wall Drawing #1255: Whirls and twirls (Currier) was created specifically for the Currier’s Winter Garden, it forms part of a series of related designs, all with the subtitle Whirls and twirls, that appear in various other locations. The Salvatore Lascari mosaic murals (1929-1930) located in the Winter Garden form a historical complement to LeWitt’s wall drawing, as these mosaics also were executed by a team of artisans and not by the artist himself. The Currier collection includes many works by artists who influenced LeWitt’s practice, including Frank Stella (Currier, 1987.50 , 2013.12) and Robert Mangold (Currier, 1986.51.55, 1986.51.56, 1986.51.59), as well as Bauhaus artists such as Josef Albers (Currier, 1962.18, 1961.7).

Written by Grace-Yvette Gemmell

Notes
1 Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum (1967).
2Wilson 1993, 5.
3Ibid., 6.

Bibliography

Bois, Yves-Alain. “Sum and the Parts.” Art Forum (February 2000).

Garrels, Gary, ed. Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.

Kimmelman, Michael. “Sol LeWitt, Master of Conceptualism, Dies at 78.” New York Times, April 9, 2007.

Reynolds, Jock, and Andrea Miller-Keller. Sol LeWitt: Twenty-Five Years of Wall Drawings. Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of Americn Art, 1994.

Smee, Sebastian. “On the Trail of Sol LeWitt.” Boston Sunday Globe, October 21, 2012.

Smith, Roberta. “Parting Thoughts from a Master of the Ephemeral.” New York Times, April 21, 2007.

Wilson, Andrew. “Sol LeWitt Interviewed.” Art Monthly 164 (March 1993).