Installation view

September 8, 2009 — October 17, 2009

PaceWildenstein presents Sol LeWitt: Forms Derived from a Cube, an exhibition of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, gouaches and structures based on his transformations of the original cubic form.

Sol LeWitt helped revolutionize the definition of art in the 1960s with his famous notion that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” Reducing art to its essentials, the cube became the basic modular unit for his artistic inquiry—“the grammatical device”—from which his work would proceed from the inception of his career throughout successive decades of his practice. A universally recognizable form that could not be mistaken to represent anything other than itself—and requiring no intention from the viewer, the cube eliminated “the necessity of inventing another form,” reserving its use “for invention.”

LeWitt achieved a major breakthrough in 1968 when he began executing large-scale drawings directly on the wall, using predetermined line-making procedures and materials normally associated with drawing or commercial art techniques. A variety of geometric shapes had emerged as autonomous subjects in his wall drawings and works on paper in 1980, and by 1982 he began working with isometric projections. By dividing the sides of the basic cube into halves, thirds, and quarters and connecting the resulting dividing points by lines, LeWitt was able to transform planar figures into three-dimensional forms.

Another major innovation of the same period was his use of brilliantly colored ink washes that were diluted and then layered in order to achieve secondary colors and shades of gray. This exhibition features four wall drawings of forms derived from the cube from the 420 series (first drawn in November 1984); two wall drawings rendered in primary colors and grey from the 412 series (first drawn in March 1984); wall drawing 540—a floating cube (first drawn in September 1987); and two wall drawings from the 606 series with exuberantly colored backgrounds (first drawn in May 1989).

Three structures of forms derived from the cube made out of wood and painted white, all from 1983 and measuring 31-1/2″ x 31-1/2″ x 31-1/2″, will also be on view. In addition, the exhibition will highlight LeWitt’s investigations of the form and structure of the cube in gouache, a medium that he began working with in 1981. The medium took LeWitt’s application and approach to color in a new direction by enabling him to overlay basic washes of red, yellow, blue, and black, achieving a wide variety of colors.

A documentary film on the artist that focuses on his wall drawings is currently being produced by the Checkerboard Film Foundation and is scheduled to be released at the end of 2009.