Collections / Explore the Collection
Today at the Museum

May 23, 2013
LECTURE

Thinking Globally: Exploring the MIA's Indian and Southeast Asian Art Collection

7 – 8 p.m.
Pillsbury Auditorium

Presenter: Risha Lee, the MIA's Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art. The MIA's Indian and Southeast Asian art collection contains many gems of art, produced in a variety of times and places. In an introduction to the collecti...
Incomplete Open Cube 8/3

This image is presented as a "thumbnail" because it is protected by copyright. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work.

Title:Incomplete Open Cube 8/3
Artist:Sol LeWitt
Date:1974
Creation Place:North America, United States
Credit Line:The Museum Purchase Fund (NEA) with matching funds from Mr. and Mrs. Miles ...
Image Copyright:© 2009 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Number:75.4
In 1974 Sol LeWitt produced a series of 122 sculptures, entitled Variations of Incomplete Open Cubes. The different combinations of three to eleven edges, or "parts," encourage the viewer to mentally construct a complete cube--for LeWitt, a symbol of three-dimensionality. Here you see the third combination of eight parts that imply a cube. Although LeWitt rejects the term "minimalism" as demeaning to his art, his use of forms pared down to their pure geometric essences links him to the Minimalist movement. LeWitt considers himself a conceptual artist and emphasizes the process of creation, from initial idea to finished work. In his view, "The idea becomes the machine that makes the art."