Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, and Carl Andre
The Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 W 21st Street, NYC
January 9 – February 28, 2015
The Paula Cooper Gallery presents an exhibition of three artists: Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, and Carl Andre.
Sol LeWitt’s vibrant Wall Drawing #992 unfolds in three sections, each consisting of 10,000 straight lines drawn in color marker. Red lines appear on the left panel, yellow in the center, and blue on the right. The number of lines derives from a traditional Taoist concept of ten thousand as an emblem of infinity, and indeed, LeWitt’s simple, precise, instructions develop into a mesmerizing arrangement of primary colors. The work’s unique installation across three distinct, and differently-scaled walls, highlights the collaborative relationship between the artist and the installers, in which LeWitt has provided basic instructions, and the draftsmen have determined the length and placement of the lines.
Dan Flavin’s untitled (to V. Mayakovsky) 1, 1987, pays homage to Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Russian futurist poet and playwright who witnessed the Russian revolution and became the voice of his generation’s utopian aspirations. The work recalls the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), Flavin’s first work using common fluorescent lightbulbs and which established the diagonal as a critical early visual theme in his artistic oeuvre. Mayakovsky is one of a series shown in 1987 in Chicago, for which the artist used pairs of four-foot lamps in parallel but slightly staggered alignment. The jagged shapes find a natural diagonal determined by placing the edges evenly along the floor.
