Today is the 3 year anniversary of the opening of MASS MoCA’s Sol LeWitt:  a Wall Drawing Retrospective!

As you may have noticed, we really love Sol LeWitt at MASS MoCA.  This is partially because we house his retrospective, which includes over 100 Wall Drawings, the majority of which LeWitt hand selected for the exhibit.  But also because LeWitt was a father of conceptual art, an innovator, as well as a comical and philosophical individual.

Here are some Sol LeWitt facts that show why we love him so much and what makes him truly unique: Read the rest of this entry »

Education intern Kate fills us in on lobby question number 2.

Our second installment on the question board in the lobby queried what movie patrons felt should be set in the Sol LeWitt Retrospective. The 105 wall drawings on view in Building 7 generated many ideas for actual films, but fictitious ones as well.

One thing that makes the Sol LeWitt Retrospective fantastic, is the fact that viewers are continually able to revisit it, and, quite frequently notice something (or many things) new each time they enter the galleries. The eclectic variety of movie titles demonstrated individual reactions to the different phases of LeWitt’s career represented in the Retrospective. Responses included family favorites, musicals, and contemporary films.

Here are some of our favorites:

We are embarking on a fun project with Cabinet, a two-part exhibition where we are inviting you to make an “exchange” with Sol LeWitt. Though most artists exchange with others at some point, Sol seemed fully committed to it as an artistic code of conduct, a way of life. His exchanges were not limited to well-known artists — Sol consistently traded works with admirers whom he did not know but who had nevertheless sent their work to him, as well as amateur artists with whom he interacted in his daily life.

For Sol, the act of exchange seemed to be not only a personal gesture, but also an integral part of his conceptual practice. In addition to encouraging the circulation of artworks through a gift economy that challenged the art world’s dominant economic model, Sol’s exchanges with strangers have the same qualities of generosity, and risk, that characterized his work in general. This kind of exchange was designed to stage an encounter between two minds, outside the familiar confines of friendship.

If we consider the process of exchange as another of Sol LeWitt’s instructional pieces, then the rational (or irrational) thing to do is to continue to exchange work and ideas, if only symbolically, with him.

We invite you to exchange with LeWitt by submitting work for consideration for a two-part exhibition (one part at MASS MoCA, one part at Cabinet offices in Brooklyn). Details on what to submit and how are on our website.

Video Vortex = a weekly installment of our favorite videos from MASS MoCA artists and trailers for upcoming events, plus a few random viral creations as well.

Tripod

Having the Tripod team on campus has been amazing so far; they even went to our local trivia night with a few of our staff members! Believe me they are just as funny in real life as they are in their videos. The show on the 30th is going to be an epic one!

Grace Potter

Looking ahead to March, we are really excited to be hosting vermont based rock songstress Grace Potter and her band the Nocturnals.

Random Goodness

And a little Sol LeWitt fun to get your weekend started!

Cheers,

Brittany

Marketing Intern Will encountered an interesting friend during his time spent in the Sol LeWitt galleries…

The other day as I was wandering through the Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing Exhibition, as I occasionally do to relax and take a little break from my normal intern duties, I noticed something alarming and peculiar. SOMETHING WAS ON ONE OF THE WALL DRAWINGS! Oh no, had someone kicked the wall leaving a little blob of mud? Had someone started to fill in Sol’s grid? Then suddenly the blob moved! What could this be?

As I got closer I noticed that it wasn’t mud or any kind of disfigurement but a tiny, itsy, bitsy, little spider. It was really kind of cute. He was just sitting there at the base of this MASSIVE (compared to his size) wall, slowly making his way upwards. It made me wonder if this Wall Drawing (#47), with its grid-like network of intersecting lines, looked like a gigantic spider web and my little friend was clinging on exploring what it had to offer him. It even looked like he was climbing up one single line or thread in his web!

I snapped of a few pictures to document his existence and amazingly silly paralleled efforts to his children’s story counterpart and let him be. Good luck little guy, just please don’t squirt any fly or bug guts on our walls!

Marketing Intern Will is at it again with this blog about a few awesome comparisons he’s noticed recently…

Now I would hardly call the relationship between our Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings and our factory Building 7 old, but they have been dating for a year now, something has to be said for that. In our modern world relationships are tough and staying together for a year or more is a big deal! I’m sure the drawings and the building have their little nothing fights, the walls complaining that “Its too cold in here we need insulated windows!” or “Pull down the blinds! That blaring sun hurts me!” while the building retorts “Why should I? You never do anything around here. All you do is sit around all day in the same spot!” But regardless of these little qualms I know that they have a strong relationship; one that will go the distance, that is longer than any relationship Buildings 4 and 5 have ever had with a work of art.

As I have been giving tours of the Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing Retrospective, I have been noticing a few peculiarities within Building 7 that weren’t apparent the first time I walked through and have only become noticeable after some time. What I have come to notice is that the walls of Building 7, in certain places, look a lot like some of the Wall Drawings on exhibit. Pretty crazy, I know, but take a look at these comparisons and I’m sure you’ll be convinced too:

Pretty crazy huh!? I can’t decide if it is actually like the saying “Old Couples Look Alike” or if the guys who renovated Building 7 or executed the Wall Drawings were all playing tricks on us by leaving the walls with these patterns. I’d really like to know. So next time you come around to North Adams be sure to stop by and check Building 7 and Sol LeWitt out for yourself and let me know if you can see it or if I’m just going a little crazy.