I am particularly interested in the Sol Lewitt article we read this week. I have been a fan of Sol Lewitt’s work for a very long time. I was first drawn to it visually in the geometry, color and scale, and I liked it more once I learned about some of the concepts behind it. I love math, so I love his pieces that directly address a problem of geometry, permutations, or counting. I also resonate with the ideas of problem solving and following basic rules to an end. These are ideas that I am often exploring in my own work and it is also what fascinates me about math. The idea that by defining a few basic rules, an entire field of mathematics can emerge. I try to employ the same philosophy when I make as Lewitt, who says to, “Select the basic form and rules that would govern the solution of the problem.”
While I agree with almost all of what Lewitt says in “Paragraphs in Conceptual Art”, I disagree when he says that the idea is the most important part. I am very interested in the physical product of my work. Many of the ideas I am working with right now have to do with math, and I have already spent many years studying them. I want to engage with these ideas in a different way. This is where I can see some of the ideas of Deleuze becoming relevant to my work. I do not claim to fully understand Deleuze’s ideas about becoming, but I am interested in the power of art to bridge a gap between two things, or maybe not bridge the gap but exist in the space between two things. The way I am understanding the idea of becoming is that it is a resonance between things that cannot be fully explained by either of those things. I am interested in exploring the ideas of math through my art because I would like to access something that I was not finding when only studying math.
Here are a couple of pictures of some Klein Bottles I’ve made.
Camila Friedman-Gerlicz 