Picture this: Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt (1928-) is probably the smartest and most consequent of the minimalists. In the 1960s he was part of the uprising against Warhol’s Pop Art and Pollock’s Expressionism. His artistic focus is not on the exploration of the human mind, or of modern society, but on mathematics, patterns and geometry. In the 1960s he became recognized for his long series of sculptures combining white hollow cubes connected to each other in repeating patterns. In theory these works could be have been developed infinitly into larger and larger structures.

Lines in two directions in five colors on five colors with all their combinations (1981) is a later work in the very same spirit. Sol LeWitt, unlike some concept art, doesn’t need deep interpretations. Most of what he does is pretty much what it looks like. If there is a deeper thought connected to it, it’s most often just to make the viewer repeat the pattern, or the mathematical struture, that is built into the work in question.

Picture this is a standing feature in the weekly journal Flamman.