- Brief Narrative
- Sol LeWitt site specific wall drawing commissioned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Art in Public Spaces program. "the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Art for Public Spaces Program was established to commission works of artistic merit that address the singularity of the [the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum] and contribute to the visitor's experience of the Museum in ways that are substantial and distinct from the permanent or special exhibitions." [see Ref 2]
"Four site-specific works of art, 'Consequence' being among them, were chosen by an independent jury 'comprised of contemporary art curators and specialists. The subcommittee included Holocaust survivors and specialists in the field of Holocaust history.' [Ref 2] The architect collaborated with the artists to ensure a harmonious relationship of each work to its architectural context." [Ref 3, p. 11]
"'Consequence' was commissioned for the second floor room where visitors pause after viewing the segment of the Museum's historical exhibition that documents the systematic mass murders and Nazi atrocities, and before proceeding to the concluding section of the exhibition. For this transitional interval LeWitt created a wall drawing which encompasses the entire long, straight wall of the room and somberly commands the entire space.
Sol LeWitt did his first 'wall drawing' in 1968--a radical shift from the traditional terrain of artists' drawings--a sheet of paper-- to the architectural context of a fixed wall. The realized work of art becomes totally inseparable from the wall that supports it.
"Consequence" is organized around the geometric figure of the square. LeWitt has divided the wall (end to end and top to bottom) into five equal areas, each approximately ten feet square. The outer edges of each of these large squares are defined by bands of undiluted black ink. Centered within each of the five large squares is an interior square of nearly five feet, colored with three layers of gray ink and circumscribed by a band of white. The sequence of five vacant squares absent of color in "Consequence" [is meant to] evoke not only memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, but [also] their children and succeeding generations.
The regular cadence of black-white-gray squares-within-squares establishes a rational framework that gets richer and more complex as the field of each of the five large squares is distinctly colored. The chromatic range from square to square is the result of different combinations of either red, yellow, blue, or gry inks, which have been rubbed directly onto the wall, layer upon layer, using cotton rags.
LeWitt's work draws upon the possilities of geometry. Here he has limited himself to the square, which the artist describes as the most stable and implacable of forms and as more introspective and inward-looking than the other geometric shapes. The repetitive solemnity of the center gray voids and the resonance of the surrounding colored fields invite an analogy to a fugue or other musical composition.
Under the artist's supervision, "Consequence" was executed by Sachiko Cho, John Hogan, and Kei Tsujimura." [Ref 1]
- Artwork Title
- Wall Drawing #720 Consequence
- Date
-
creation:
1993 March
- Geography
-
creation:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum;
Washington (D.C.)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
- Contributor
-
Artist:
Sol LeWitt
