Sol Lewitt

Sol Lewitt at MASS MoCA!!!

MASS MOCA admission fees have gone up but GUESS WHAT... it's worth it! In fact, I did not even go into any of the other buildings to see any of the other shows... I had already seen everything that is up... all of my time on this visit was spent in the newly opened space housing the Sol Lewitt retrospective.

Not that I paid the full price - I always bring a "student" id and pay $10 - but still! This previously un-used building is now FILLED with three floors of Sol Lewitt wall drawings and paintings... it's spectacular... guaranteed to have you wandering around for a long time. Plus there are two videos; one video is of the assistants who spent the summer making everything and the other is of an exhibition walk-through and interview with Sol Lewitt... both of which are 100% enjoyable.

If I had been one of those fortunate enough to have spent the summer helping to paint I would have worn the same outfit everday and that paint-spattered uniform would now be a treasure. Instead I was getting infected on a farm.


This installation is up for twenty-five years.... this is now officially a pilgrimmage spot... like Roden Crater or the Rothko Chapel.

Now On View Through 2033.


Each floor is from a different period.... first floor is early work, second floor is middle work, third floor is later work. You enter at the second floor. The pieces pictured above are on the third floor, the X is from 2007 and the cube is dated 2005... both are in graphite, the medium of his earliest drawings.

CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE because it is EXCELLENT... you can view by grid or floorplan.

It's worth noting that both the Williams and MASS MoCA texts make mention of Lewitt's forty-year career, with the earliest of the early works at MASS MoCA dated 1969, yet the artist died last year at almost eighty. So if you are thirty-five and floundering don't sweat it. LeWitt had his first solo exhibition at the Daniels Gallery, New York, in 1965... he would have been maybe thirty-six.


Third floor.


View into the infamous Building 5, from a third floor balcony off of the stairs to the Lewitt installation... they are installing the Simon Starling show, which opens December 13th. I can see the giant Jenny Holzer beanbag chairs piled up in the far corner. Want one.

Nice to be able to see this unfinished installation in progress. I recall watching Spencer Finch himself - alone with a stepladder, crumpling blue filters to install Passing Cloud - from a different balcony into another cavernous MASS MoCA gallery space, way back in April or May 2007, before that lawsuit happened.

Spirit of Sharing.






First floor.


It was almost empty on Wednesday. I heard there were 1500 people at the private opening on Saturday, with 1000 attending the public opening on Sunday.


The idea becomes a machine that makes the art!!!

Make sure you stop at Williams first if you go before May 17th.