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Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus.

Sol LeWitt

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Sol LeWitt
Age: 78 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 9
Died: 2007
Died: April 8
Architect
Artist
Conceptual Artist
Drawer
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Sculptor
Hartford
Connecticut
Sol Le Witt
Sol Lewitt
Solomon Sol LeWitt
Became
Gave
Idea
Next
Art
Ideas
Impetus
Real
Conceptual
Years
Liberating

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Unless you're involved with thinking about what you're doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over, and that becomes tedious and, in the end, defeating.
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Minimal art went nowhere.
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What the work of art looks like isn't too important.
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Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple
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In my case, I used the elements of these simple forms - square, cube, line and color - to produce logical systems. Most of these systems were finite that is, they were complete using all possible variations. This kept them simple.
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An architect doesn't go off with a shovel and dig his foundation and lay every brick. He's still an artist.
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When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
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A blind man can make art if what is in his mind can be passed to another mind in some tangible form.
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New materials are one of the great afflictions of contemporary art. Some artists confuse new materials with new ideas.
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Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.
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Artists teach critics what to think. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.
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Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept. It is the idea that is being reproduced. Anyone who understands the work of art owns it. We all own the Mona Lisa.
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You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.
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Once it is out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand the same thing in a different way.
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Obviously a drawing of a person is not a real person, but a drawing of a line is a real line.
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During the '70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art.
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I wasn't really that interested in objects. I was interested in ideas.
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Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
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Ideas alone can be works of art they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
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All intervening steps, scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed work models, studies thoughts, conversations, are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product
Sol LeWitt