Wall Drawing 1261

Scribbles. (Yale)

July 2008

Graphite

Courtesy of the Estate of Sol LeWitt (Designated for Yale University Art Gallery)

First Installation

MASS MoCA , North Adams, MA

First Drawn By

Takeshi Arita, Jennifer Chian, Aran Jones, Michael Benjamin Vedder

Mass MoCA Building 7
Third Floor

Throughout his career LeWitt generated complex structures using the simplest of artistic elements and gestures. In his final wall drawings, the scribble served as the basic unit of his work. Wall Drawing 1261, one of two scribble drawings making their debut at MASS MoCA, consists of concentric rings drawn from dense layers of scribbles, which radiate out from the center of the wall. Within each ring, there are several gradations of tone, made with progressively denser areas of markings. While other scribble drawings are realized using a more gradual change of tone over a larger expanse of wall, here the different increments of scribbles are much closer together. Light and dark regions transition in a cadence that echoes the frenetic character of the graphite marks themselves. The drawing seems to reverberate and the expanding circles appear as if they might continue indefinitely, breaking though the nine-foot square which contains them.