Sol LeWitt Quotes

51 quotes in 617 categories

• I wasn't really that interested in objects. I was interested in ideas.
• An architect doesn't go off with a shovel and dig his foundation and lay every brick. He's still an artist.
• Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
• When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations…
• 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…
• Once it is out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand…
• Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept. It is the…
• Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.
• Artists teach critics what to think. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.
• During the '70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art.
• Every generation renews itself in its own way; there's always a reaction against whatever is standard.
• 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.
• I didn't want to save art - I respected the older artists too much to think art needed saving. But I knew it was finished,…
• Ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be…
• Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable. In terms of idea the…
• New materials are one of the great afflictions of contemporary art. Some artists confuse new materials with new ideas.
• What the work of art looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something if it has a physical form. No matter what…
• A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or…
• The most interesting characteristic of the cube is that it is relatively uninteresting. Compared to any other three-dimensional form, the cube lacks any aggressive force,…
• 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.

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