Sol LeWitt: Artist

“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

as quoted in Gerhard Richter, Doubt and belief in painting, Robert Storr, MOMA, New York, 2003, p. 88, note 17
Quotes of Sol Lewitt

Idea

“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

Source: Quotes of Sol Lewitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," 1967, p. 80. Cited in: Diane Waldman. Carl Andre https://archive.org/stream/carlandre00wald#page/7/mode/1up. Published 1970 by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. p. 7

Art , Idea , Decision , Dependency

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

Sol LeWitt

0-9 (New York), 1969, and Art-Language (England), May 1969
Quotes of 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

“Serial Project #1, 1966,” Aspen 5/6 (Fall/Winter 1967)
Quotes of Sol Lewitt

Understanding

“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

Quotes of Sol Lewitt
Source: Art Institute of Chicago. Video Data Bank (1992), On Art and Artists. p. 1991