The Romantic idea that an artist is an inspired genius who communicates part of his soul through his visual, literary or musical creations incorporates an autobiographical element into the creation process.
But conceptual artist Sol LeWitt is anything but a Romantic. In 1965 he defined the mode of modern art known as Conceptualism, a movement tangential to the Minimalist front.
Conceptualism placed distance between the artist and the work of art. The preconceived idea of the art object was of supreme importance to the actual construction or existence of the object itself.
LeWitt has said that art is about the idea behind the work and not the nuts and bolts of its physical presence.
LeWitt, born in Stamford, Conn. in 1928, is most famous for his studies of geometric forms, such as the sculpture "Incomplete Open Cube 8-14" (1974) purchased through the Julia L. Whittier Fund and a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This structure, now in the collection of the Hood Museum of Art, is made out of enameled aluminum. Each length of the cube measures approximately 106 cm.
LeWitt probably contracted a metal-working firm to make this cube-based sculpture. He may have picked up the phone, described the dimensions and sent a few sketches to the company. But LeWitt's own hands never manipulated or crafted the art object.
Because the building of the art object was secondary to the idea underlying the work, many conceptual artists contracted the fabrication of the art object to metal shops, wood-working studios, and industrial plants, while also relying on assistants to paint or produce works that bear the artist's name.
This idea of delegating the production of art to a sea of assistants is not a new phenomenon. LeWitt's use of assistants is decisively different from artists like Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse or Peter Paul Rubens, who all used assistants.
LeWitt contracts his work -- not because he is lazy or bed-ridden or over-booked -- but because his idea is embodied in his art. Once he has the idea formulated, the execution of the object is of little consequence.
LeWitt's work is completely removed from his own life. There are no Romantic remnants of autobiography incorporated into his drawings or sculptures. The only elements that exist are geometric shapes and the ideas attached to them.
Lewitt does not use a narrative structure to place his sculpture in the events of a story, nor does his art rely on figurative representations to attract the eye of the viewer.
Most Conceptual art can not fully communicate its idea without written information, graphs of the design, and further explanation. Some critics see this inability for a work to stand on its own as a weakness of Conceptual art.
For LeWitt, it is the expression of his idea in various forms -- whether a written explanation or the physical object itself, that instills meaning to his work.
The Hood Museum has another LeWitt piece on extended loan from the artist.
"A wall divided into 3 equal vertical sections" (1990) is an example of a LeWitt painting created from mathematical calculations. One might assume it is a decorative scheme to enliven what was once a plane of white plaster. There is no frame around the paint to designate as a work of art.
The wall is divided into three equal sections, two of which are further divided into 15 horizontal bands of equal width, and the third section divided into 12 vertical bands of equal width. Each band is painted from three layers of color made from four colors in total.
The finished scheme results in an amazing variety of colors, all with slight variations in hue, but an underlying similarity across the bands and tripartite sections.
There is a calm beneath this work created by the principles of order and logic underlying its geometry.
The painting was drawn by a studio assistant to LeWitt, the Hood Museum's preparator Louis Glass, Thom Betterton '91 and Torin Porter '93.
LeWitt's idea that the fabricator of a work does not have to be the artist creates some perplexing questions about the ownership of conceptual art.
Hypothetically, LeWitt could sell this wall painting or end its loan to the Hood Museum. Since the wall painting is not contained in a portable frame, the wall would have to be painted over and the work recreated somewhere else if were to be sold or the loan was ended.
Before Conceptual art, the art object could be bought and sold, put up for auction, and shipped back and forth between galleries.
Conceptual art undermines the gallery and museum systems based on capitalism, as well as redefines the non-physical existence of a work of art.
Conceptual art also leaves open the possibility that an idea can be lost, stolen or misrepresented, since the ability to produce the physical object is so open-ended and available to anyone who wants to reproduce it.
"The idea becomes a machine that makes the art," LeWitt has stated. As long as there are people to make the machine run, LeWitt's art is guaranteed physical representation.
