Page 42 - Studio International - December 1969

DWAN GALLERY 'WALL DRAWINGS' EX I IIBITION
OCTOBER, 1969
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Plan drawing of West Wall.
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Working drawing for East Wall.
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Working drawing for North Wall.
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Installation Photograph: South Wall.
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Box No. 1 (Series A), North Room.
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Workers Executing East Wall drawing.
small and elongated space, only the longitudi- Along the entering ramp on the left, he made Gallery and the drawing series published as a
nal walls could support graphite drawings a horizontal band of continuous three-lines booklet and executed on separate walls of
(the end walls are mostly glass). On one wall, (diagonals and vertical again) ; then there Krefeld's Haus Lange in October 1969.
LeWitt placed a 250 cm square of four con- were two groups of contiguous squares in The connecting link between these three
tiguous squares of the four 'absolute' direc- a semi-serialized ordering of double-lined phenomena is the new, extremely simple series
tions of single line : the primary unit from squares; at the far right was a large single of the four 'absolute' lines of the 'Fours'
which his 'Fours' series had blossomed. square of double diagonal lines on brick-work series, now used in all possible combinations
Opposite, he ran a band 125 cm high hori- whose horizontals implicitly formed a three- (fifteen) as unitary fields capable of an infinite
zontally along the total length of the wall lined patterning balancing that along the variety of shape and area-measurement. Both
without subdivisions; this band was composed entrance wall. Neither exhibition was com- more simple and flexible than the 'Fours'
of three superimposed lines (two diagonal and pletely successful.9 series, it fuses itself with greater economy to
a vertical), and situated to relate to human But within the very real limitations of time, whatever material context it uses. Its con-
height. As much as being (almost) opposites money, and experience, these exhibitions were ceptual basis is most clearly manifest in the
of the extended absolutes of his drawing certainly not un-interesting; and as exercises, booklet which physically forms part of and
series, these drawings accentuated the simple their lessons were not wasted on LeWitt." accompanies the Dwan and Krefeld exhibi-
particularity of the gallery. In the architec- His experience in concern with wholeness tions. Here each drawing is a whole page
turally complex semi-subterranean space of helped to achieve the astoundingly successful experience of differing visual texture; each
L'Attico, LeWitt worked in relation to the synthesis between drawing and environment, can be experienced alone as successive recto
physically-interrupted wall spaces and archi- idea and its physical perception and material (`picture') surface or in simultaneous relation
tecturally-encouraged spectator movement. context of his October exhibition at the Dwan with all the others—in the first page 'key' or

9 In Dusseldorf, the four-lined combine which would bastic nature of the architecture almost killed the draw- bine of a square-squared; the overall presence of the
have been complete as the absolute opposite of the ings' ability to hold attention. (Although the pattern on orthogonals and concentric patterning of the cross-
one-lined square was abnegated because of the tech- the floor was painted out, what could one do with that mirrored diagonals gave the drawing a wholeness
nical difficulties of drawing so long a regular horizontal ceiling—other than replace it? As it now looms, it which was exploited at Paula Cooper's. There it was
line; there was not enough time or experience to would out-shock almost anything but live and smelly elongated into a rectangular field filling a whole wall;
experiment or achieve this. In Rome, the assisting horses ... ) and its perceptual centralized unity held its environ-
triangles used were so small that the one long three-lined 10 This can be seen specifically in the direct connection mental character in taut balance. And here (on home
field had to be divided into longitudinal halves which between the successful wall drawing exhibited at ground) LeWitt demanded and developed a means to
were conceptually and visually senseless: the ordering Paula Cooper's in late May 1969 with one of the same execute the extraordinarily long horizontal lines with
process of the double-lined squares was more casually configuration executed in the office of L'Attico earlier even regularity.
serial than tautly self-reflective; and the almost born- that month. At L'Attico it began as a three-line corn-