Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side

Journal • Art & Culture

Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side

Artist's photographs take pride of place in the community that inspired them...

James Davidson •

Regarded as a founder of both minimal and conceptual art, the prolific American artist Sol LeWitt was infatuated with walls. Between 1968 and his death in 2007 he would create more than 1,270 wall drawings, and throughout his career he chronicled the walls around him with a series of photographic essays. One of which – On the Walls of the Lower East Side – consisted of 666 photographs that documented the urban decay and dilapidation of the area of New York in which he lived and worked. Fitting then, that 120 of those photographs now adorn a 20-feet high by 60-feet wide wall in the community that inspired them; albeit a tad different a community to that of the ’70s. Morgans Hotel Group’s latest New York property – the 4th in their hometown – the Mondrian SoHo is the canvas for this unique collaboration with independent curator Adam Shopkorn, the LeWitt Foundation and Paula Cooper Gallery; marking the launch of a new initiative to “further guest experience and their relationship with art and to embrace the neighborhood’s surrounding”…

Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side Sol LeWitt: On the Walls of the Lower East Side

Images © Estate of Sol LeWitt / ARS. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York