WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — In conjunction with the "Strict Beauty: Sol LeWitt Prints" exhibition currently on view at the Williams College Museum of Art, curator David S. Areford will present a program at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 21, that explores the Jewish dimensions of Sol LeWitt's art through five projects.

 

The program will be held in person at Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) as well as virtually on Zoom and live-streamed on YouTube. 

 

To register for the Zoom program, visit artmuseum.williams.edu. WCMA's galleries will remain open until 5:30 p.m. so that attendees can visit the exhibition before the program.

 

According to a press release, LeWitt's early statements asserting that his work was devoid of the "subjective" or any "social or moral purpose," might seem to contradict any direct connections to Judaism, yet from 1987 to 2005, LeWitt accepted several commissions to make artworks in response to specific Jewish contexts in Italy, Germany, and the United States. 

 

These five projects include "Black Form "(1989), a concrete-block sculpture that serves as a stark memorial to the "missing Jews" of Hamburg; the artist's lone foray into architecture, the design of his local synagogue in Chester, Conn. (2001), based on Eastern European wooden synagogues lost during World War II; and "Lost Voices" (2005), a site-specific sound-and-sculpture installation at a former synagogue outside Cologne. 

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Williams College Art Department and the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires.

 

David S. Areford is professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is the author of "Strict Beauty: Sol LeWitt Prints" (Yale University Press, Williams College Museum of Art, and New Britain Museum of American Art, 2020) and editor of "Locating Sol LeWitt" (Yale University Press, 2021), a volume of nine essays that reveal the full scope of the artist's wide-ranging practice and reassess his singular contributions to 20th-century art (selected by Bookforum and ARTnews as one of the best art books of 2021). His current book project is tentatively titled "Sol LeWitt: Painting."

 

For more information, contact the museum at 413-597-2429 or visit artmuseum.williams.edu.