Understanding LeWitt
So it turns out that Sunday was the last day of the Sol LeWitt exhibit at the Austin Museum of Art. We dashed down there to look at images and sculpture from 3 decades of his career. I love him because he is mathematical and oh so human. Here is a great quote: "Ideas can't be owned. They belong to whomever understands them." And they were a gift to us as we wandered, took in, analyzed. Math nerds that we are, we had to analyze patterns. For one period in his career, LeWitt wrote instructions, very mathematical, to be carried out by anyone who could follow along. We love that--the production of art as mathematical proof, sorta.
X said I should write this: "We were just theoreticizing a bit on a pattern piece that he made using lines of the arched, the straight and the unstraight. He marked down every combination of two of those different things. X pointed out a flaw: He did three lines instead of two. The square was marked 11/20 (out of 39/40). 11 was an unstraight line going from top right corner and 20 was a straight line going from upper right to lower left. But he accidentally added another line--a straight one going from upper left to lower right corner."
We called it the human element and Texas Sue pointed out that Middle Eastern rugs made by Muslims always have a purposeful flaw, because only God is perfect. X adds tonight: "I would like to tell them something but I think it would mess up their mojo. By putting the flaw in, it is actually part of the design, so it is perfect, because of the flaw. The human is supposed to have flaws. " Was LeWitt thinking along those lines, too?
This is not the image we were looking at, but you can get the idea. by Sol LeWitt, 1974.
10 comments:
Just wondering if you've heard of Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX? You seem very interested in art. Marfa is about 7 hours drive west of Austin.
http://www.chinati.org/visit/missionhistory.php
Austin reader
Hi,
I find Conceptual art fascinating in general and Lewitt fascinating in particular due to the different aesthetic he has brought to the table within the context of art. I believe that Lewitts aesthetic is more about the aesthetic of math than it is of art especially in his earlier pieces. One recent problem I see is that mathematicians think they are artists. There may be an argument here however; mathematicians need to realize that they are conceptual artists not regular artists. Conceptual art is an entirely different animal than art.
Cheers,
Kaz
This is what I love about Austin Reader(s)....suggestions, delightful suggestions. Marfa has been mentioned but no one said WHY. Chinati sounds wonderful! thank you
The LeWitt is a fine work for a little mental workout. But too rational. Art as the other of reason is my preference. Reason for us too often has become only rationality -- which I define as the application of basic math as model, metaphor and method for ordering life, reality. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I see lopsided people and a lopsided civilization, with endemic outbreaks of irrational impulse unelevated by artfulness as a consequence. Some have blamed Plato for seeing math as the one and only way to theoria -- the privileged position of the gods, and other ways have withered. What other candidates are there? For some: sex, drugs and rock n roll, with wine as substitution more often as we age ...
Dear Mr Anon Y Mous
You give yourself away.
LeWitt's body of work goes way beyond the combinations stuff, though they are brilliant enough. He is anti-rational in his seeming rationality---that's what I meant by "oh so human". Sweet and funny.
Anyway, I had to use the combinations to show off my kid, which is of course the ultimate aim of this blog. :)
Look back at another of my posts...even brain scientists know now that there is no rationality without emotion, which chips away at your argument a little. Irrationaliity is probably thinking too much without enough feeling.
No Platonist here.
The story of Donald Judd and the recent popularity of Marfa are intriguing. My husband and I got married in the dome of the courthouse so that is another reason it is close to my heart.
Austin reader again
The story of Donald Judd and the recent popularity of Marfa are intriguing. My husband and I got married in the dome of the courthouse so that is another reason it is close to my heart.
Austin reader again
I did not know I could give my self away. I don't feel it missing. But just in case I'll look around. It's a big space, there seems be obscure stuff lying around which seems to be neither feeling nor grid lines, can't call it thought either. I remember some poetry about a hint half guessed, a gift half understood ...
The topic of rational and irrational has little to do with a lack of neither emotions nor aesthetic. Mathematics being the language of rationality has a rich aesthetic however it is not art. If one has not experienced much of mathematics then one really should not make judgments concerning it’s aesthetic. Conceptual art for the most part does not rely on a traditional art aesthetic as well. It requires an aesthetic of language, formal which includes mathematics as well as informal like those of the esoteric. For the most part it is a blend of aesthetics.
Conceptual art tried to position itself within the realm of art. I think this is a mistake. Conceptual art is really a genre unto itself much like mathematics. They both lie outside of the aesthetics of art and culture. This is obviously not to mean that mathematics, rationality as well as much of conceptual art has no aesthetic, for we know they do. In addition that is not to say that a piece of conceptual art can have no cultural references, for they can however, it is at this point that the piece becomes polyaesthetic, embodying the art aesthetic as well as other aesthetics. We must not get confused to believe that because something is beautiful that it is art. Conceptual art may easily incorporate aesthetic ideals from both art and mathematics as we see in the case of LeWitt. The conceptual art scholar, Robert C. Morgan once told me that LeWitt’s work has a didactic element to it. This reminds me of my work which contains what I call a ‘reflexive didactic’ which answers a question by pointing to or asking another question. Art for me should point beyond what is literally expressed by trying to bridge the infinite to the concrete.
Cheers,
Kaz
You say you have a theory, and that means it's better than it looks.
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