And drove down to visit the Clarke, the Williams College Museum of Art and Mass M.O.C.A
which had the O Canada show, complete with an intro and I quote
"Confederated in 1867.....” Since when did confederation become a verb?
Needless to say I was less than impressed with this exhibition. But at
the Williams College Museum of Art there was a
beautiful show of Sol LeWitt: The Well Tempered Grid. This is what the museum
has to say about his grids, a structure close to my heart. "Inspired by
his first encounter with the work of photographer Eadweard Muybridge
(1830–1904) in the late 1950s, LeWitt began experimenting with a loosely
structured grid in several large oil paintings of 1960, based on the Muybridge
motif of a running man. By 1962 he had simplified his use of this format to
exclude figurative elements, and by 1964 he was making his first wall-mounted
grid structures. When LeWitt made his first wall drawings in 1968 he used the
grid as the underlying structural principle. Thereafter grids became a
pervasive matrix in all of the media in which LeWitt worked—in his
three-dimensional “structures,” drawings and gouaches on paper, photographic
cycles, artist’s books, furniture, and wall drawings." LeWitt was also a
huge Bach fan [with a collection of 400 Bach audio cassettes] listening to Bach
in the studio as he worked. And as an added treat, as we were wandering about, a
piano tuner was tuning a harpsichord in one of the galleries. Just the sound of
the repetitive AAA, BBB ect. was perfect.
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| SOL LEWITT, DETAIL FROM ALL COMBINATIONS OF ARCS FROM FOUR CORNERS, ARCS FROM FOUR SIDES, STRAIGHT LINES, NOT-STRAIGHT LINES AND BROKEN LINES |
And for some extra fun, check out Edward Lifson's blog, Hello Beautiful, for his article on how the Sol LeWitt exhibition at Mass M.O.C.A was created. [Link here] As he says " Almost an acre of LeWitt. They'll stay up for at least 25 years."
While I find the acres of LeWitt overwhelming at Mass M.O.C.A, the Williams College Museum of Art has lots of the notebooks and some very beautiful graphite on black paper drawings. Much more intimate and closer to my sensibilities.
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| THE POSTER FOR LEWITT’S EXHIBITION AT THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS, 1976 |
I did not know that there was a Sol Lewitt show at the WIlliams College Museum as well. I didn't make it up there this summer. Just Mass Moca. I was not impressed with the "Oh Canada" show either except for one artist who did some amazing bead work of the bacteria that caused the deaths of the native Canadians. Powerful. That is about all I remember of the show. I thought the space in the large gallery was totally wasted this time with the broken instruments. Although the pews were interesting.
ReplyDeleteI like the bacteria pieces too, Just so disappointed with the light house and Ed Piens piece which I have seen only in photos before. maybe these installations work better in photographs, ie in their documentation. The light house was photographed in a dark room with light glowing from inside and was stunning.
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