The artist Sol LeWitt died last week at the age of 78, just two months after the death of Jules Olitski, another artist who achieved fame in the 1960′s. Each took as his point of departure the “action painting” of the 1950′s, reacting against its convulsive gestures and swagger—although they did so in sharply different ways.
Olitski stained his canvases with frail veils of color, creating mists or fields without any bounding lines. LeWitt, by contrast, made hard-edged sculptures and paintings. Cool and cerebral in character, they were invariably bounded by firm lines and planes. He preferred working with “deliberately uninteresting”—to use his phrase—forms and geometric modules, which he assembled into sprawling additive compositions. These laconic assemblages mark the beginning of Conceptual Art, a term LeWitt coined in 1967.
In that year LeWitt published his landmark essay, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” in Artforum. “Paragraphs” contains a celebrated definition: “In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. 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.” So perfunctory, indeed, that the execution of LeWitt’s wall paintings was invariably left to assistants or student volunteers working from his written instructions.
No Taliban Offensive—Yet
The Taliban continue to perpetrate atrocities, the latest being a bombing in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, which is said to have killed nine police officers. This was a bit unusual, insofar as the north is generally pretty peaceful. The Taliban are much stronger in the southern and eastern provinces. But even there their activities have not, so far, lived up to their advance billing.
For months Taliban spokesmen have been bragging about—and coalition soldiers have been dreading—a “spring offensive.” Well, spring began a month ago (March 21 was the vernal equinox), and, though Taliban attacks continue, there has been no substantial spike. So far no offensive has materialized—a fact that has gone largely unreported in the press but that is being commented upon by some NATO ministers and soldiers.
If there had been a Tet-style offensive in Afghanistan it would certainly be big news. But nothing much happening passes without much comment. I was only made aware of the lack of news while chatting with a Special Forces soldier in Iraq who had served not long ago in Afghanistan.
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