Last week at SFMOMA, I saw a piece of art called “Wall Drawing 1” by Sol LeWitt. It was a grid of carefully drawn lines. But it wasn’t on a canvas. It was drawn directly on the wall.
I thought to myself, “that’s one way to make sure the museum never moves your piece out of rotation!”
But then I read the placard explaining the piece and discovered that while Sol LeWitt was credited with the piece, he, in fact, did not actually draw it. It credits LeWitt as drawing the original piece but this particular one was drawn by another artist who followed the detailed instructions LeWitt left behind before he died.
This got me thinking about something big.
What makes art, art? The idea behind it? Or the actual making of it?
