Visiting the Yale University Art Gallery is always a good idea, but right now, it’s especially a treat for fans of Hartford-born, New Britain-raised Sol LeWitt.
One gallery and an adjacent hallway on the fourth floor of the museum are dedicated to six huge wall drawings designed by the legendary conceptual and minimalist artist (1928-2007). There is also video about LeWitt’s working process: LeWitt’s singular method consisted of creating a design for a wall drawing and then giving the instructions to a team of draftspeople, who drew it on the wall.
In a 1971 essay, LeWitt stressed the collaborative vitality.
“The artist must allow various interpretations of his plan. The draftsman perceives the artist’s plan, then reorders it to his own experience and understanding. The draftsman’s contributions are unforeseen by the artist, even if he, the artist, is the draftsman,” he wrote. “Each person draws a line differently and each person understands words differently. Neither lines nor words are ideas, they are the means by which ideas are conveyed.”
The Yale draftspeople are Ryan Norman Cyr, Lauren Hoegemann, John Killar, Jaime Kriksciun, Nick Pfaff, Amanda Valaitis, Janet M. Warner, Brittany Whiteman, Will Reynolds, Lillianna Marie Baczeski, Grant Lincoln Johnson, Anna Robinson-Sweet, Cesar Valdes, Julie A. Weaver and Maria Saporito.
Together, they created a black, gray and white parallelogram, a huge grid of black pencil on a white wall, an assymetrical pyramid, a red, yellow and blue geometric pattern and – probably the most challenging construction – a pattern of three disparate lines on a red background.
A seventh wall drawing – a gray circle meticulously constructed from thousands of black lines – is in the museum lobby. The exhibit also marks the opening of the Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing Study Center on the Yale West Campus, the home of an archive of material by and about LeWitt, who lived in Chester.
SOL LEWITT WALL DRAWINGS: EXPANDING A LEGACY is at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. in New Haven, until Jan. 27, 2019. artgallery.yale.edu.
On Other Walls
“Mirrors and Glass,” work by photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron and glassworker Laura de Santillana, is at James Barron Art in Kent starting Sept. 8, when it opens with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. jamesbarronart.com.
“Chado: The Way of Tea,” an exhibit about Japanese tea ceremonies, will open at Wesleyan University’s College of East Asian Studies in Middletown on Sept. 12 with a reception starting at noon. It will run until Nov. 30. wesleyan.edu/cfa
“The Real Unreal: Realism Now” will be up until Oct. 14 in the Visual and Performing Arts Center at the Western Connecticut State University Westside campus in Danbury. The opening reception is Sept. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. Artists are Mia Brownell, Leeah Joo, Jennifer Knaus and Nathan Lewis. The curator is Jane Rainwater. wcsu.edu.
![Dust off your finest hats—it’s Derby day. This year marks the 150th Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The horse race has occurred annually on a Saturday in May since it began on May 17, 1875, with the only exceptions being 1945 due to World War II and 2020 because of […]](https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/202405040611TMS_____FASTCOMP_19685_ctnfc_media.jpg?w=620 "Dust off your finest hats—it’s Derby day. This year marks the 150th Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The horse race has occurred annually on a Saturday in May since it began on May 17, 1875, with the only exceptions being 1945 due to World War II and 2020 because of […]")