Seven Wall Drawings

It’s all about the drawn line. 10 000 straight lines, 22 meters of scribbles and indigo snap lines cover the walls from floor to ceiling at Magasin 3. For six weeks 14 artists and art students have drawn full time. They have realized this exhibition of seven wall drawings by the American artist Sol LeWitt.

The exhibition includes drawings executed in pencil as well as ink washes mixed to the deepest of purples and burnt umber. Every drawing is based on verbal or written instructions; no decisions are made in the process. LeWitt’s role can be likened to that of a composer, the person from his studio in charge of the work is the conductor and the artists executing the work make up the orchestra.

Elisabeth Millqvist, curator of the exhibition:

The descriptions and instructions sound bone dry but the result is startling. It is beautiful, chaotic and overwhelming. The finished wall drawing shows the inadequacies of language in describing what we can expect to see.

With his ‘wall drawings’ rendered directly onto the wall LeWitt changed our concept of what art is – its appearance and who creates it. He succeeded in the challenging task of combining art that puts the idea first with an exciting visual form and continues to be a central figure for young artists to this day. LeWitt was a pioneer among the Minimalists and Conceptual artists who were so groundbreaking at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s. In 1968 he made his first wall drawing in graphite and restricted himself to horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. Right up to his death he investigated every line combination imaginable while over the years expanding his formal language to encompass geometric shapes and color.

This is the most extensive exhibition of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings in Scandinavia to date.

About the artist:

The American artist Sol LeWitt was born in 1928 and passed away in 2007. A number of retrospective exhibitions focusing on his wall drawings have taken place in the USA since 2000, most notably at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2000), Dia Beacon, New York (ongoing) and the ambitious large-scale presentation at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (2008-2033). In Europe the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam presented a retrospective with LeWitt’s wall drawings in 1984, which was followed by an exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern in 1989. In Sweden individual wall drawings have been shown at Galleri Aronowitsch, Stockholm (1982), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1984), Galleriet, Lund (in 1983 and 1987) and at the Nordic Watercolour Museum, Tjörn, Gothenburg (2002) amongst others.

For press inquiries please contact:

Tove Schalin, exhibition coordinator: schalin@magasin3.com, 08-545 680 44, 070-270 86 35.