Sol LeWitt, one of Warhol’s contemporaries, took the idea to the limit. Though the American artist died five years ago, his work – or rather the work of his “staff ” – is very much alive.
Between 1968 and 2007, LeWitt created more than 1,200 “wall drawings”. Twenty-four of them have been (re)created in Leuven by six professional drafters trained by the LeWitt studio. Assisted by about 70 young artists and students from Belgian art schools, they executed the monumental geometric drawings directly on the walls of the city’s Museum M. Guided by the artist’s instructions and diagrams, it took seven weeks to complete five rooms and a corridor. The result is dazzling in its contrasts. It shows how majestic you can get without losing an eye for detail.
“It also took a very different approach compared to other exhibitions,” says curator Eva Wittocx, whose thesis 15 years ago was on the work of LeWitt and who started preparing this show the first time she saw the high walls of the museum. “Normally we spend most money on transport and insurances; this time most of our budget went on materials: paint, brushes, pencils, crayons, ink, platforms… The preparation was almost half of the work.”
Wittocx says that for one of the opening pencil drawings, the pencils had to be sharpened after every single line. These drawings date from the late 1960s and early ’70s. Thicker lines appeared when LeWitt started to use crayon. At this point, he introduced coloured backgrounds. By the 1980s, LeWitt had expanded his artistic scope by introducing new materials and application techniques, including Indian ink washes, reaching a closer dialogue with the space each work inhabits. Visitors can clearly see that where the wall is interrupted by a doorway or a window, the wall drawing is also interrupted. These “architectural accidents” are part of the idea that every space has its peculiarities.
In the 1990s, LeWitt started using acrylic paint. In the monumental painting that’s recreated in Leuven, we can see how the texture of the paint and its saturated colours become an integral part of the work. LeWitt’s ideas – getting rid of the canvas – were considered radical 40 years ago, in part because this new form of drawing was purposely temporary. At Museum M, the wall paintings exist only for the duration of the exhibition. “It will be a painful experience to see them being painted over again,” admits Wittocx. “But that’s part of the deal. LeWitt often compared his ideas with musical scores; they can be played over and over again.”
LeWitt always emphasised that all the steps in the process of creating are important. “The idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product,” he said in 1971. “All intervening steps, scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed work models, studies, thoughts, conversations, are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.”
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