“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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The artist’s aim is not to instruct the viewer, but to give information, whether the viewer understands the information…" by Sol LeWitt?

Sol LeWitt 9

American artist 1928–2007

David Marr (1945–1980) British neuroscientist and psychologist

as cited in Steven Yantis (2001) Visual Perception: Essential Readings, p. 117.
Vision, 1982

“Every part of the photographic image carries some information that contributes to its total statement; the viewer's responsibility is to see, in the most literal way, everything that is there and respond to it”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Becker (1986) "Do Photographs Tell the Truth?” and “Aesthetics and Truth" as cited in: Ingolf Erler (2010) Das Buch als soziales Symbol. p. 147.

“We communicate with each other to inform, to instruct, to persuade, to amuse, to annoy. Informing and instructing aim to alter the receiver's concepts, whereas persuading, amusing or annoying aim to change his preferences or feelings. In a work situation people do make jokes and enemies, and use the arts of persuasion, but much of their communication has an informal or instructional aspect.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Information Systems (1973), p. 1.

“Because it's exactly this kind of role reversal that I'm interested in, and then it actually makes it a challenge for the viewer. Also, because most artists work in a completely different way.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

Emily Wasik asked Isa here: You once said in an interview, 'I want to animate the viewers, hold a mirror up to them.' Why do you believe it's important to put yourself [as an artist] in the viewer's shoes and create art that transforms them?
after 2010, Isa Genzken, the artist who doesn't do interviews' (2014)