Sol LeWitt quotes

Sol LeWitt was an American artist known as a pioneer of conceptual and minimal art. His wall drawings and structures focused on ideas, systems, and geometric forms. He influenced generations of artists by transforming the way art is conceived and made. Here are 34 of his quotes:

Minimal art went nowhere.

Sol LeWitt

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.

Sol LeWitt

Artists of many diverse types began using simple forms to their own ends.

Sol LeWitt

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.

Sol LeWitt

Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

Sol LeWitt

The artist's aim is not to instruct the viewer, but to give information, whether the viewer understands the information is incidental to the artist.

Sol LeWitt

The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

Sol LeWitt

In conceptual art the idea or the concept is the most important aspect of the work. 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. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive; it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as a craftsman.

Sol LeWitt

The ideas need not be complex. Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable.

Sol LeWitt

Minimal art went nowhere. Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus. All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art. The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.

Sol LeWitt

Minimalism wasn't a real idea - it ended before it started.

Sol LeWitt

A blind man can make art if what is in his mind can be passed to another mind in some tangible form.

Sol LeWitt

You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.

Sol LeWitt

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.

Sol LeWitt

All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art.

Sol LeWitt

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

Sol LeWitt

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

Sol LeWitt

The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.

Sol LeWitt

Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.

Sol LeWitt

The narrative of serial art works more like music than like literature.

Sol LeWitt

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators. I believe that the artist's involvement in the capitalist structure is disadvantageous to the artist and forces him to produce objects in order to live.

Sol LeWitt

The artist's will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion.... His wilfulness may only be ego.... The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.

Sol LeWitt