Sol LeWitt Artist Quotations

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

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

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

I became interested in making books, starting about 1965, when I did the Serial Project #1, deciding that I needed a small book to show how the work could be understood and how the system worked.

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

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.

Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable. In terms of idea the artist is free to even surprise himself. Ideas are discovered by intuition.

Once it is out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand the same thing in a different way.

All intervening steps, scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed work models, studies thoughts, conversations, are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product

Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

The artist’s aim is not to instruct the viewer, but to give information, whether the viewer understands the information is incidental to the artist.

An architect doesn't go off with a shovel and dig his foundation and lay every brick. He's still an artist.

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

[The artist's aim is] not to instruct the viewer, but to give him information... . The artist would follow his predetermined premise to its conclusion, avoiding subjectivity. Chance, taste, or unconsciously remembered forms would play no part in the outcome. The serial artist does not attempt to produce a beautiful or mysterious object but functions merely as a clerk cataloguing the results of his premise.