Paragraphs on Conceptual Art¶
LeWitt, S. (1967). Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. Artforum, 5(10), 79-83.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Abstraction in Art
- A common failure is conceptual abstraction that is conceptually interesting but perceptually dead, or emotionally powerful but conceptually empty, without integration—a polarity LeWitt (1967) thematized in his "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" and Rothko (1947) countered with his color-field commitment to direct emotional address
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
LeWitt supplies the conceptual pole: conceptual art aims to be mentally interesting and emotionally dry, and he contrasts conception with perception; Rothko's counter-position is not in this source.
“mentally interesting to the spectator, and therefore usually he would want it to become emotionally dry.”
- A common failure is conceptual abstraction that is conceptually interesting but perceptually dead, or emotionally powerful but conceptually empty, without integration—a polarity LeWitt (1967) thematized in his "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" and Rothko (1947) countered with his color-field commitment to direct emotional address
- Minimalism
- Every element—the metal, the form, the space it occupies—carries perceptual weight precisely because nothing extraneous has been included; LeWitt (1967) develops the related conceptualist position that the idea, not its execution, is what survives reduction.
This sourceFoundational manifesto of conceptual art ("the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work"), repositioning abstraction as a conceptual rather than purely visual practice.
- Every element—the metal, the form, the space it occupies—carries perceptual weight precisely because nothing extraneous has been included; LeWitt (1967) develops the related conceptualist position that the idea, not its execution, is what survives reduction.
- Minimalism in Art
- The concentration of compositional weight into the remaining elements through seriality, repetition, and precise proportion, the rule-based mode LeWitt (1967) theorized in "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art"
This sourceFoundational manifesto of conceptual art ("the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work"), repositioning abstraction as a conceptual rather than purely visual practice.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
LeWitt describes preset, rule-governed plans and the repeated simple modular form that concentrates intensity in the arrangement; he does not name seriality or proportion.
“Using a simple form repeatedly narrows the field of the work and concentrates the intensity to the arrangement of the form.”
- The concentration of compositional weight into the remaining elements through seriality, repetition, and precise proportion, the rule-based mode LeWitt (1967) theorized in "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art"
Verification¶
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