Sign Up
..... Connect Australia with the world.
Categories

Posted: 2022-07-17 19:00:00

Rather than painting work himself, LeWitt created detailed instructions for each piece, leaving it to other people to execute them at different times and locations. In his manifesto, Sentences on Conceptual Art, LeWitt wrote that “Ideas can be works of art”.

Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt in 2000.

Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt in 2000.Credit:AP

“It’s like a composer who composes music so it can replayed,” says Kaldor.

For the creation of the monumental AGNSW work LeWitt’s instructions specify the wall be rendered three times and that a specific brand of paint, imported from the UK, be used. Two specially trained technicians have travelled from the US and Switzerland to make the work, along with a group of local assistants. Work will begin on July 18 and be completed in time for the August 27 opening.

Pivotal to the project, Sol LeWitt: Affinities and Resonances are the new music compositions, which visitors will be able to listen to on headphones as well as hear in live performance.

Three American artists, Chuck Johnson, Steven Gunn and Claire Rousay, have collaborated with, respectively, First Nations artists JW Paton, amby downs and E. Fishpool.

Loading

Each pair was asked to interpret LeWitt’s work as an alternative form of musical notation as well as consider the way in which LeWitt’s work speaks to that of his First Nations counterparts.

The gallery’s music curator Jonathan Wilson has overseen and facilitated the process, helping the composers use the painting as a “launchpad” for their compositions.

He says he is delighted with the resulting works.

“On its own, I feel like this music is transformative but within the exhibition, it arrives in the middle of the worlds that have been created by the visual artists,” he says. “It pulls it all together, kinda like a resonant glue.”

Sol LeWitt: Affinities and Resonances, August 27 to February 12, John Kaldor Family Hall, Art Gallery of NSW

A cultural guide to going out and loving your city. Sign up to our Culture Fix newsletter here.

View More
  • 0 Comment(s)
Captcha Challenge
Reload Image
Type in the verification code above