Sol LeWitt, Intricate Wall, 2001-04

concrete block

Loan courtesy of the LeWitt Collection

Sol LeWitt’s Intricate Wall, 2001-2004, confronts and confounds viewers and highlights the similarities and differences that exist between sculpture and architecture. During his artistic career, LeWitt’s work investigated the many ways in which shapes can be organized within a set of self-imposed restrictions. Here, cinder blocks, stacked and mortared in a precise repetitive modular pattern within an assigned cubic grid, look like prison walls, crash barriers or a maze. This ambiguous resemblance is exploited by Lewitt to suggest that sculpture is literal as well as having an optical effect.  Through the 1980’s and 90’s, Lewitt used concrete and cinder  blocks to present his system of organization, but he slowly moved away from the cold rigidity of concrete into creating works made of colorful organic forms. In that sense Intricate Wall, finished in 2004, is one of the latest examples of these works.

Location: Museum Circle