June 3rd: David S. Areford in conversation with Anna Lovatt, Veronica Roberts, and Kirsten Swenson

Presented by 192 Books and Paula Cooper Gallery, David S. Areford will be discussing his new book, Locating Sol LeWitt, with contributors Anna Lovatt, Veronica Roberts, and Kirsten Swenson.

The live event will stream directly on this page on Thursday, June 3rd at 6pm EST. There is no login or rsvp required. A recording will be archived and posted shortly afterwards. During the broadcast, please email your questions to evan@192books.com.

David S. Areford, ed. — Locating Sol LeWitt, with essays by David Areford, Lindsay Aveilhe, Erica DiBenedetto, Anna Lovatt, James H. Miller, Veronica Roberts, Kirsten Swenson, and John A. Tyson (Yale University Press, 2021)

A pioneer of minimalism and conceptual art, Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) is best known for his monumental wall drawings. LeWitt’s broad artistic practice, however, also included photography, artist’s books, sculpture, and printmaking. From the familiar to the underappreciated aspects of the artist’s oeuvre, this book examines the ways that LeWitt’s work was multidisciplinary, humorous, philosophical, and even religious.

Locating Sol LeWitt contains nine new essays that explore the artist’s work across media and address topics, such as LeWitt’s formative friendships with colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art in the early 1960s; his photographs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side; his 1979 collaboration with Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass and its impact on his printmaking; and his commissions linked to Jewish history and the Holocaust. The essays offer insights into the role of parody, experimentation, and uncertainty in the artist’s practice, along with contingency in relation to site, space, and movement. Together, these studies shed light on the full scope of LeWitt’s creativity and offer a multifaceted reassessment of this singular and influential artist.

David S. Areford is associate professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of Strict Beauty: Sol LeWitt Prints (Yale University Press, 2020), as well as books and essays on fifteenth-century European printmaking and devotional art.

Anna Lovatt is assistant professor of art history at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. She is the author of Drawing Degree Zero: The Line from Minimal to Conceptual Art (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019) and Michelle Stuart: Drawn from Nature (Hatje Cantz, 2013).

Veronica Roberts is curator of modern and contemporary art at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the editor and co-author of Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt (Blanton Museum, 2014). Her essay “Sol LeWitt’s Radical Rips” is included in Sol LeWitt: Not to Be Sold for More Than $100 (Radius Books, 2020).

Kirsten Swenson is associate professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. She is the author of Irrational Judgments: Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, and 1960s New York (Yale University Press, 2015) and co-editor and co-author of Critical Landscapes: Art, Space, Politics (University of California Press, 2015).