MASS MoCA, review by Patrick Burns

MoCA Goes Elementary 

by Patrick Burns

“The wall is equally divided into 15 parts. Each section is given a one, two, three, or four color wash of grey, red, blue, and yellow ink. The wall has four panels containing a single color, six panels containing combinations of two colors, four panels with combinations of three colors, and one panel with all four basic colors, allowing for all possible color combinations.” These are the instructions for Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #422, one of 105 wall drawings in the collection Sol LeWitt: a Wall Drawing Retrospective, currently on display at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). The exhibit, featuring three floors of work chronologically organized from 1969 to 2007, was conceived by the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, in collaboration with the artist before his death in April 2007. A team of 65 artists and art students spent 6 months in 2008 applying Sol LeWitt’s specific formulas for his wall drawings to the newly refurbished walls of MASS MoCA’s Building #7, where they will be displayed for the next 25 years. 

            Wall Drawing #422, originally conceived in 1984, is a striking example of the beauty Sol LeWitt found in the simple. LeWitt, a forefather of American minimalistic and conceptual art, is known for his specific mathematical formulas, which, when applied to blank walls, create massive, graphic installments.  #422 echoes LeWitt’s earlier work on the first floor of the exhibit that showcases his interest in lines, grids, grayscale, and the primary colors. #422, the first wall drawing on the second floor, signifies a shift in LeWitt’s work, where the 80’s come alive through pop color and isometric shapes.  The 15 ink wash panels create a bold rainbow together, but alone they are even more stunning. Upon close inspection, the multiple layers of ink come alive and create unique texture and color combinations. Sure, panel 6 is green, but is it really green? Or just squiggles of blue and yellow? LeWitt’s work reminds of us kindergarten color mixing lessons, jogging the sophisticated art viewer’s memory of the elementary nature of color.  

            #422 serves as a template and color pallet for the rest of the floor’s work, such as #684A (1999), where the ink washes meet LeWitt’s four directional lines (horizontal, vertical, left diagonal, and right diagonal) featured in his earlier work, and #793B (1996) where LeWitt’s abandons parallel lines and concentric arcs for irregular bands of jewel tone ink washes. As LeWitt ages, his work becomes more playful, featuring bold acrylic colors and childishly simple geometric shapes. His mathematical, formulaic signature, while still present, is less noticeable in #1112 (2003), where color and pattern take center stage, creating a square of primary and secondary colored rectangles, where no two alike colors touch. The vibrancy and youthfulness of LeWitt’s later works are reminiscent of childhood drawings found hanging on a refrigerator, but his knack for impeccable specificity in line, shape, and pattern elevates the work to the outer edges of the fine art stratosphere, where narrative and character are foreign and unimportant.