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Sol LeWitt

日期
30.11.2021 | 12.12.2021
画廊
Pièce Unique
文件
PRESS RELEASE

MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is delighted to present Negative Pyramid by Sol LeWitt, in collaboration with the Sol LeWitt Estate.

First exhibited in Paris in 1997 at Lucio Amelio’s Pièce Unique gallery located in rue Jacques Callot, this is the first time the work returns to Paris since its first presentation.

Repetition, method, and geometry are the cornerstones of LeWitt’s practice.

In his 1999 essay Paragraphs on conceptual art, Lewitt explains that “using a simple form repeatedly narrows the field of the work and concentrates the intensity to the arrangement of the form. This arrangement becomes the end while the form becomes the means.”

By submitting his practice to a pre-established system, or fundamental idea which would determine the methods according to which the work should be composed, LeWitt was able to adopt an attitude of neutrality towards artistic and linguistic expression: “the aim of the artist interested in conceptual art is to make his work mentally interesting for the spectator, and for this reason, the artist wishes for this work to become arid on the emotive plan.”

Paradoxically, his most personal gesture became his ability to strip his work from his own subjectivity, giving maximum importance to composition and form.

Made of 209 concrete blocks layered in a horseshoe, regressive sequence, Negative Pyramid is part of an architectural body of work that LeWitt began in 1985 in Switzerland, following a residency in Umbria, Italy.

The work directly references ancient Egyptian tombstones: large, stepped structures first built in Mesopotamia, also referenced in the architecture of Le Corbusier and in the 1916 proposals for ‘setback’ buildings in central Manhattan, about which LeWitt published the article, ‘Ziggurats’, in 1966. In this case, the negative form of the pyramid is also an echo to the counter monumental tradition of the 1980’s and 1990’s, which sought to question the occupation of space and the construction of memorial monuments to symbolize absence.

The cement block, a modern, simple construction material, was a fitting unit experiment with modular compositions, to create his ‘structures’ –referencing the squares in a grid. As an artist who lived and worked in New York, the presence of grid structures were and echo to the modular skyline and checkerboard road layout of Manhattan, a pattern frequently used throughout art history.

This exhibition is presented in parallel to McArthur Binion – Sol LeWitt at MASSIMODECARLO Milan from November 26th to January 15th, 2022, which intends to stimulate conversation surrounding the points of crossover and contrast in the work of Sol LeWitt and McArthur Binion, two prominent voices in contemporary art and key figures of twentieth-century modernism.

Side by side their work is elegant and thoughtful, inspiring questions relating to the importance of surface, depth and theory surrounding the nature of art objects themselves.

2 SL Seriality Documenta Photo Maria Netter Basel Original jpg
Sol LeWitt

索尔·勒维特 (SOL LEWITT) 1928年生于美国哈特福德,2007年逝于美国纽约,被广泛认为是20世纪60年代观念艺术与极简主义的先驱之一。


勒维特以其独特的视觉词汇而闻名:他的作品缜密研究几何学,以及最简洁的视觉规则集和中可能的规则与排列。他最具代表性的作品包括标志性的壁画、极简主义雕塑,以及铅笔与墨水画。


勒维特于1949年从雪城大学获得艺术学士学位毕业,随后在朝鲜战争期间(1950年至1953年)服役于驻韩美军与驻日美军,负责设计海报。在20世纪60年代末,他开始创作壁画。他的第一件作品可以追溯到1968年,展出于纽约的保拉·库珀画廊:白墙上由黑色铅笔绘制的平行线条。直接在墙上作画使勒维特得以追求他的一大主要目标:加强其作品的平面性,让作品尽可能二维。在20世纪70年代末,勒维特移居到意大利斯波莱托,在那里研究了乔托、菲利普·利皮、马萨乔与真福安杰利科修士的作品。勒维特的作品经历了重大转变,他开始尝试印度墨水和色彩水墨,以致敬当地14与15世纪的作品。


勒维特的作品被广泛展出:现代艺术博物馆,纽约;泰特现代艺术馆,伦敦;伯尔尼美术馆,伯尔尼;阿姆斯特丹市立博物馆,阿姆斯特丹;海牙美术馆,海牙;沃兹沃思学会,哈特福德;里沃利城堡当代艺术博物馆,都灵;展览宫,罗马;第四届卡塞尔文献展;第五届卡塞尔文献展;威尼斯双年展。