Sol LeWitt Ideas Quotations

You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.

Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.

Minimalism wasn't a real idea - it ended before it started.

Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept. It is the idea that is being reproduced. Anyone who understands the work of art owns it. We all own the Mona Lisa.

I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art

Conceptual art is only good if the idea is good.

What the work of art looks like isn't too important. It has to look like something if it has a physical form. No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea. It is the process of conception and realization with which the artist is concerned.

Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.

I wasn't really that interested in objects. I was interested in ideas.

The idea part is simple but the visual perception is complex.

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work

The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

Ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.

Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple

When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

New materials are one of the great afflictions of contemporary art. Some artists confuse new materials with new ideas.