Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt was born on this day in 1928.

Dave Dyment | Incomplete Open Cube

Dave Dyment

Incomplete Open Cube

Sackville, Canada: Self-published, 2026

15 x 15 cm.

Edition of 25 signed and numbered copies

Last month Jon Clayton hosted the International Sackville Cube Day event as part of the book launch for his new graphic novel Nowhere. Poet Geordie Miller read, singer Julie Doiron performed and a dozen or so visual artists displayed cube related art works. 

My contribution was a take-away envelope containing an image of the cube that I took on our second visit to the town, when the fully automated refrigerator building was not yet complete.

Sol Lewitt | A Retrospective

Sol Lewitt

A Retrospective

New Haven/London, USA/UK: Yale University Press, 2000

416 pp. 29.8 x 25 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

A large catalogue/monograph for a show organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art which travelled to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Whitney Museum in New York. The title includes 350 images of LeWitt's work from 1960 to 2000, including wall drawings, three-dimensional structures, and works on paper. It features essays by Brenda Richardson, Martin Friedman, Anne Rorimer, Andrea Miller-Keller, John S. Weber, and Adam D. Weinberg. 

Printed Matter

A letter written fifty years ago today that precipitated the founding of Printed Matter Bookstore. 

 

Extra

The periodical that Sol LeWitt called "The only magazine not about art but as art" was not the first, and certainly not the only serial artists' publication, but produced five striking issues in a just over a year, fifty years ago. 

Edited by Walter Lippert, the magazine focused on more conceptual practices, EXTRA featured writings and artworks by artists from around the world. 

Hans Haacke wrote about the censorship of his Manet-PROJECT '74 (as he did in Avalanche Magazine that same year). The work was rejected by the museum just prior the opening and in response Daniel Buren pasted copies of Haacke’s panels onto his own black-and-white wallpaper to circumvent the museum’s attempt at censorship (the museum's response was to remove Buren’s wallpaper, also).

Buren contributed two pages of vertical stripes printed on vellum to EXTRA. Sol LeWitt provided Drawings, Duane Michals contributed Portrait of Andy Warhol and Hanne Darboven provided Manuscript for a Film. 

Other contributors included Art & Language, Terry Atkinson, Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Antonio Dias, Ralph Gibson, Joseph Kosuth, Roman Opalka, Giuseppe Penone, Anna & Patrick Poirier, Bernar Venet and Gilberto Zorio. 

The fourth and penultimate issue (from April 1975) was devoted to works by David Askevold, produced from 1968 to 1974. 

Hans-Peter Feldmann was a victim of censorship, not by the magazine but by their printer: 

"We are so late as our printer refused to print this issue because of Hans-Peter Feldmann's contribution. You can't believe it's possible? It is!" 

EXTRA was reportedly produced in an edition of 500 copies each. In 2016, a complete set sold at auction for $594 US, just below the low estimate of between six and nine hundred dollars. 

Sol Lewitt

Sol Lewitt died on this day at the age of 78.

Sol Lewitt | Nine Pyramids on a Nine Part Grid

Sol Lewitt 

Nine Pyramids on a Nine Part Grid

New York City, USA: Tanglewood Press, 1991

33 x 73.7 x 73.7 cm.

Edition of 15 [+ 6 AP] signed and numbered copies

Valued at approximately nine thousand dollars, the work consists of painted cast polyurethane resin pyramids screwed into a  Formica base which is signed and numbered in ink on the underside.

This week on Tumblr: Collections

http://artistsbooksandmultiples.tumblr.com/tagged/collections