Page 41 - Studio International - December 1969

(sequentially additive, `tonal'), and within
each merely systematically varied the sequence
of 1234. On one level, this whole organizing
method is almost stupidly simple (any child
with an analogue computer could do it) ; on
another, 192 drawings are obtained which
perceptually vary widely in seeming sym-
metry and assymetry, simplicity (unity) and
variety (complexity). However different the
drawings seem, they are the same in some
ways—and any two drawings within a parti-
cular series, or corresponding within particular
series or sets, are the same on many conceptual
levels often surprisingly at odds with their
immediate perceptual effect.
The achievement of (selecting? discovering?
developing?) a serial idea so fraught with
ironic richness seems to have dominated
LeWitt's mind during much of 1968 and early December 1968 as well as drawings (at the Ace were stipulated; special aids like masking
1969. The idea came first, its manifest form Gallery in Los Angeles) and twice in book tape and supports for right-angles and much
followed. Most of his artistic manifestation/ form: on twenty-four recto pages of Seth human time and dexterity helped compensate
exhibition activity during this time presented Siegelaub's Xerox book-exhibitions and as a for surface and manual irregularities to
selected parts of this idea which could act as full booklet (used as a catalogue for the Ace achieve an almost 'machine-made' clarity to
complete wholes within the system's struc- Gallery show) on consecutively facing pages. the ideas' expression. Against the usual white
ture and the physical context available. The whole series was drawn on the white walls, the sharp silvery tone of the graphite
LeWitt's first wall drawing, exhibited at enamel surfaces of two 6 ft by 4 ft square held tautly without a dominating 'figure' or
Paula Cooper's Gallery in New York, was a boxes (exactly as stated in April 1969) for one `ground' ; for a similar neutrality in black-line
pair of A (single line, 'flat') and B (sequentially of the two rooms (works) of LeWitt's exhibi- print, a pale greyish paper was selected when
additive line, 'tonal') versions of instance tion in the Dwan Gallery during October possible. Size was selected in relation to the
`3142' from his series II (mirror organization) 1969. desired perceptual clarity and the physical
of this series of 'Fours'.5 At Harold Szeeman's In the course of executing these exhibitions, possibilities of a place.? And although at first
`When Attitudes become Form' exhibition in LeWitt became increasingly interested in the the drawing ideas of the 'Fours' series domina-
Berne (March/April 1969), there were two relation of his artistic ideas to their physical ted their seemingly separate physical contexts,
pairs (a squared grouping of four drawings of environment and its visual perception. From in spring of 1969 LeWitt worked for an inte-
`fours') : A and B versions of the first instance his first wall drawing, the relation between gration of the two in the very specialized
(1234) of series I (rotation, perceptually sym- graphite line and interval was controlled to architectural spaces of the Konrad Fischer
metrical) and II (cross mirror, perceptually be as neutrally non-hierarchical as possible. and L'Attico galleries in Düsseldorf and
assymetrical). The whole All series of twenty- Fine, hard pencil, close-as-possible juxta- Rome.8
four drawings was manifest simultaneously in position, and evenness of pressure and width In Konrad Fischer's clean but unusually

5 My nomenclature and terminology is taken from that The huge wall in the Ace Gallery allowed twenty-four the fields of the (physical) page or wall — setting up a
of LeWitt for this series in his essay cited above. drawings to be evenly spaced and measured in this figure-ground relationship which accentuated the
6 Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, scale relation without architectural interruption. The dominance of the four-squared nature of the idea/
Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Lawrence Weiner, published by increased precision and contrast of print over pencil drawing. In the Ace Gallery exhibition, the 10-in. grid
Seth Siegelaub and John W. Wendler, December 1968. allowed smaller drawings in the Ace and Siegelaub measure of the drawings was actually drawn through-
7 At Paula Cooper's in November 1968, the size of the books where they were centred in pages large enough out the whole wall: associating the drawings with the
one isolated possible wall allowed only a pair large to be held with physical ease. idea of 'grid' two-dimensionality rather than with the
enough to clearly present the regular scale relation 8 At Paula Cooper's (1968) and the Siegelaub and in Ace specific material of the architecture which was so
amongst pencil line and its subsequently squared areas. books, this was done by centring the drawings within dominated that it perceptually virtually dematerialized.