Sol LeWitt: The Artist and His Artists

The exhibition Sol LeWitt. The Artist and His Artists at MADRE museum in Naples is the first tribute by an Italian museum to this major international contemporary art figure since his death in New York in 2007. As the title suggests, the exhibition aims to show Sol LeWitt‘s various and multifaceted achievement as an artist.

Unlike an anthological exhibition organized on strictly chronological lines, the show provides an original overview of an artistic development covering nearly 50 years, dividing it into three sections, reflecting three thematic clusters, with new works designed by the artist and produced by his assistants; works never shown to the public before; and finally works by other artists collected by LeWitt.

The first section, with works never previously exhibited, consists of five wall drawings- specifically selected in collaboration with the LeWitt Collection for the space at the MADRE museum designed by the artist in 2007 and never executed before. They are Scribbles, the last cycle Sol LeWitt worked on. For the Naples exhibition, a specialist draughtsman from the LeWitt Collection, assisted by young local artists, has been at work on the museum’s walls.

The second section of the exhibition consists of 47 works by LeWitt largely drawn from the Neapolitan collections: drawings, gouaches and sculptures covering a period from his beginnings in ’68 down to the present. In addition to the private collections, LeWitt’s works can be seen in Naples at Capodimonte Museum, Madre Museum, Materdei Subway Station, Città della Scienza and at the Morra Greco Foundation.

The third section, the result of a collaboration with the Centre Pompidou of Metz, presents 95 works, a significant part of Sol LeWitt’s private collection. Collecting works by other artists was never just a hobby or an occasional indulgence for LeWitt but a full-time job. Begun in 1960, the collection now housed at the Foundation in Chester includes a large core of works by Italian artists like Boetti, Merz, Kounellis,Paolini, Salvo, Chia, Tirelli and others: colleagues and friends he formed ties with on his long and frequent visits to Italy.