Sol LeWitt Quotes on Art (15 Quotes)

Artists of many diverse types began using simple forms to their own ends.

Minimal art went nowhere.

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators.

The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the System. The visual aspect can't be understood without understanding the system. It isn't what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.

Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.

Artists teach critics what to think. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.

I believe that the artist's involvement in the capitalist structure is disadvantageous to the artist and forces him to produce objects in order to live.

All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art.

During the '70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art.

Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.

Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.

Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept. It is the idea that is being reproduced. Anyone who understands the work of art owns it. We all own the Mona Lisa.

I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art.