Incomplete Open Cubes

1974/1982

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

Incomplete Open Cubes demonstrates an artistic technique integral to the art of the 1960s: seriality. Generally speaking, serial art is generated through the application of premeditated rules or plans. In this case, LeWitt systematically explored the 122 ways of "not making a cube, all the ways of the cube not being complete," per the artist. LeWitt might have taken all the necessary steps to realize each of the 122 solutions to his query, as seen here, but the work can hardly be understood as finished in the conventional sense. It would be more precise to say, according to LeWitt, that Incomplete Open Cubes "[runs] its course," ending abruptly. Moreover, to the extent that the cubes frame and, by extension, incorporate elements from the surrounding space, they muddy the boundary between art and world.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Incomplete Open Cubes
Artist: Sol LeWitt (American, Hartford, Connecticut 1928–2007 New York)
Date: 1974/1982
Medium: 122 Painted wooden structures and pencil on painted wooden base
Dimensions: Structures: 2 5/8 x 2 5/8 x 2 5/8 “ each
Base: 29 x 70 x 65”
Classification: Installations
Credit Line: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. The Douglas Tracy Smith and Dorothy Potter Smith Fund, and partial gift of Carol and Sol LeWitt. In honor of Nicholas C. Baume, Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art, 1998-2003
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art