Exercise 1.7. Artists and Words.

In this exercise we have to study Sol Le Witt’s set of instructions to a gallery, and write our own set of instructions to make one of our works.

As it is explained in the educational website of the National Gallery of Art: “LeWitt’s instructions are both specific and open-ended so that the resulting work of art varies according to the interpretation made by the draftsperson producing the work of art. Sol LeWitt used lines, geometric solids, ratio, patterns, formulas, and permutations to create his modern structures and wall paintings.” LeWitt’s philosophy of his conceptual minimalistic art was about perpetual evolution, “no end” state of artwork and creative process, that is why anyone could achieve different outcomes following same set of instructions. I think it is worth to note that his art making instructions involved geometrical terms such as points, lines, simplified shapes and basic colours.

Below is my set of instructions, which I did following Sol LeWitt’s approach to give control over the creative outcome to someone else.

1. Find a quiet place, where none will disturb you; prepare a paper of any size, a soft brush of any size and black, blue and green ink, as well as golden and white shade acrylic paint, a painting knife or flat plastic hairbrush;

2. Sit on your knees or in half lotus pose in front of your paper, close your eyes, concentrate your attention on your breathing and heartbeat for 10 minutes;

3. Paint 7 shapes of your favourite flowers over the surface of your paper, placing them as you wish; while painting synchronise your breath with your brushstroke: exhale with a brushstroke.

4. Connect some of these flowers with green and blue leaves, painting them around soft stems;

5. Paint clouds in gold acrylic in the negative space between and around the flowers bulbs;

6. Take a painting knife or small, medium size hairbrush, dip it in white shade acrylic paint and work over the surface diagonally to obtain a “raining effect”.

Exercise 1.8. What will do it for me

To start this exercise we must reflect on reasons why writing a substantial piece of text might be beneficial for us.

I must confess the context of the question in the exercise is obscure. Should we think about the reasons of writing any kind of text for the project we are working or a text like Jaimini Patel wrote?

Exercise 1.9. Impressions.

In this exercise we have to write our responses to the following questions.

• What is your first impression on reading about and looking at Jaimini Patel’s work?
• Pinpoint at least three areas where you identify a crossover between the writing and the studio work. What effect might expressing things in words have had on the artist’s studio work and vice versa?
• Do you learn more about Jaimini Patel’s work by reading the text as well as looking at the images?
• Considering the subject matter covered in Part 3, where do you think the benefits might lie in writing about your work?

It was interesting to observe in my reflection on Jaimini Patel’s works “Measure”, matches, carbon paper, tape, table, paper;(Berlin, Germany, 2016) that I had no opinion about them: nothing in me resonated with them, they were not engaging for me, nor interesting. My impression was- these works were just boring. Then I started to read about them and found a text on the Ruskin School of Art, presenting them as follows: “Patel investigates the agency of matter through a negotiation of boundaries, systems and performative actions in order to re-evaluate our relationship with the material world.  For this new work, she has collected and arranged materials and objects from the daily activities of living and making art, over the last 18 months.  These fragments, residues and leftovers that would ordinarily be abandoned, become the main protagonists in shifting landscapes of relations.  Arranged initially by colour, the materials begin to establish other connections through shared characteristics, processes undergone or the activities that generate them.  As more nuanced links emerge, and families of objects pull other objects to them with varying potency, they defy the imposition of premeditated categorisation, and rely instead on something more instinctual and mutable. “

With all my respect, I think this is a sample of a poor art writing. Even if it is noted that the works are dedicated to “re-evaluating our relationship with a material world” and the collected items for these works are “the main protagonists in shifting landscape of relations”, or they defy the imposition of premeditated categorisation“, it is still very unclear what is special about this investigation, where exactly these relations shift? What is the “varying potency” of random objects pulling other objects? What is that “imposition of premeditated categorisation” and “more instinctual and mutable” the objects rely on? This art-critical piece provides some framework through which we can think about Patel’s art, but it doesn’t illuminate much about it. This art critical piece writing is impossible to understand and that is a shame because it brings obstacles to understand the artwork. I resonate a lot with American art critic Jackson Arn who wrote about obscure and vague, excessively sophisticated art critical writing: “The truth is probably more and less dire. It’s often said that there’s more bad art writing now than there’s ever been, and that’s probably true—but only because there’s more art writing now than there’s ever been. Like all jargon, impenetrable art jargon limps on by convincing impressionable people that obscurity is a sign of intelligence and sophistication—a proposition that sounds ridiculous once you give it more than a moment’s thought. When faced with this sort of babble, the best course of action might be to turn away—and read, instead, any one of the critics who’ve written brilliantly and lucidly about art, as if they’d never heard of visuality and do not care to learn.” ( Dec 2018, online artsy.net)

There is not much written about Patel’s “Measure” artwork, most writings refer to the above-mentioned text. Thus I re-read the texts from the artist in our course book. I understand the text “Watching” and I can relate it to the photograph of burned matches placed in a tight row. The text “Drawing”, probably, relates to the two last photos of red carbon paper in the suggested series. The text “Unrolling” is tied to the photo of two types of sticky tapes.

Even if I use the suggested above framework to view Jaimini Patel’s artwork “Measure” as an attempt to investigate “ the agency of matter through a negotiation of boundaries, systems and performative actions to re-evaluate our relationship with the material world”, I can’t say that it is clear for me how she understands where exactly these actions of burning row of matches or throwing a pair of sticky tapes with different force, or tracing the tile for hundred times bring her.

What exactly had changed in her understanding of the material world and her relations with it via these performances? She doesn’t explain it clearly in her texts and the photographs are not self-explanatory. Her texts contain just observations, which are similar to observations of a middle school-aged child at a science lesson. I am sorry, but I didn’t find any artistic interpretation of her experiments and performative acts, so the “Measure” doesn’t look as an artwork for me. I think the more efficient way to explain to the viewer her findings would be to make videos of the performative actions rather than taking photos of the final point of each action.

Thus I would rather consider the “Measure” as an interim stage of a creative project which is not brought to an artistic conclusion yet.

I am asked to pinpoint at least three areas as a crossover between the writing and the studio work. I think writing during studio work is a great thing you can do because it helps to focus on creative task.

I see the following important areas of studio work which can benefit from writing: a) mapping and development of ideas, writing down your creative idea in detail, the results of experiments, the emotional flow, and conclusions about what is working and what is not; b) outlining a framework through which the artwork can be perceived and viewed; c) developing a text which can be equal artistically valuable part of the artwork, for example a well crafted fiction/non fiction, reflective literature text;

I have been reading the book “Open Questions” by Helen Molesworth, a well-known art critic. She has been writing about art for thirty years and has been addressing the question of why she writes.

“I tend to write about things that I don’t fully understand because writing helps me to understand them better”. ( p. 28, “Open Qusetions”, Helen Molesworth, 2023, Phaidon, London).

Bibliography: “Sol LeWitt on how to be an artist”, Alexa Gotthardt, 27.06.2020, Artsy, online on https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-sol-lewitt-artist [accessed on February 29, 2024];

“Sol Witt’s Concepts and Structures”, Grade 9-10, National Gallery of Art, online on http://www.nga.gov [accessed on Feb 29 2024]; “Drawing Instructions”, Whitney Museum of American Art, online on http://www.whitney.org [accessed on February 29, 2024];

“Jaimini Patel- an Inventory of Small Acts”, The Ruskin School of Art, online on https://www.rsa.ox.ac.uk/news/detail/jaimini-patel-an-inventory-of-small-things [accessed on February 29, 2024];

“Master Art Criticism: Write Thoughtful Engaging Art Reviews”, Lee Down, online on https://artsartistsartwork.com/master-art-criticism-write-thoughtful-engaging-art-reviews/ [accessed on Feb 27, 2024]; “Art. The Way We Talk about Art Shouldn’t be Impossible to Understand”, Jackson Arn, Dec14, 2018, online on https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-way-talk-art-impossible-understand [accessed on Feb 27, 2024];

“Open Questions ”, Helen Molesworth, 2023, Phaidon Press Limited, London). [accesed on Feb 20, 2024];