Over the last three weeks, visitors to the Art Institute have been able to witness the creation (or more accurately, re-creation) process firsthand. As part of an exhibition Contemporary Collecting: Selections from the Donna and Howard Stone Collection, a draftsman from the LeWitt Foundation has been working with staff from the Art Institute’s contemporary art department to “create” Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #1111: A Circle with Broken Bands of Color (2003) in the Modern Wing’s Griffin Court, in full view of the public.
For those of you unfamiliar with LeWitt’s work, much of it doesn’t exist like most artworks do, as a tangible painting, drawing, or sculpture. Rather, it is a list of instructions on how to create the artwork. Takashi, the draftsman from the LeWitt foundation, brought a schematic with him. t’s essentially a giant tape painting. The general layout and colors to be used are predetermined. Also, there are certain rules—for example, no one block of color should ever come into contact with another block of the same color. No yellows touching yellows and so forth. The the exact order of the colors in the circular bands, however, are open for interpretation. They use Lascaux acrylic paints, if you’re wondering.
As a conceptual artist, LeWitt believed that it wasn’t the finished work that was the “art”; art instead begins and ends with an idea.
Check out the video below to watch the process unfold.
