art: home is Incomplete Open Cubes 5/9

in progress!

Sol LeWitt programmatically/accidentally made the most simple, refined, and beautiful home evar,

Can you spot it in this housing development?

I saw this exhibition at SFMOMA, a sublime quiet experience. The artwork is the name: starting with three connected sides of a cube that extend in three directions/dimensions, what are all the possible forms of a cube? But as usual with LeWitt, the realization of the conceptual art is itself aesthetically pleasing: the drawings, the actual existence of the conceptual forms in real space, it’s all so good. The way they get more varied with more “limbs” and then simplify as they approach 11 edges (it doesn’t include the final “full” cube) is lovely. It is much bigger than this appears (it was in a huge room), but it isn’t overwhelming.

My favorite is this one, Incomplete Open Cubes 5/9. It’s a front door and front garden, what else do you need?

I was quickly drawn to it over every other shapen in the exhibition.

Here’s a link to an SVG reconstruction of it.

Art Gallery of NSW has 5/8, same number of edges (five), but it’s all spiky and overturned stool.

I’d love to own the particular sculpture Incomplete Open Cubes 5/9, or commission a replica. It’s just baked enamel on aluminum, how expensive can it be? Uh-oh, the auctioneer Christie’s sold Incomplete Open Cube 7/14 in 2011 for… $206,500.

True, this is a larger floor-standing sculpture, 42 inches (106.6 cm) on a side. The dozens at SFMOMA were more petite, apparently only 8×8×8 inches. And this has two extra edges, so the smaller one should be 28% off!?

There’s also a book from the original 1974 gallery exhibition at John Weber Gallery, ‘Sol Lewitt “Incomplete Open Cubes”.’ It’s only $500 for a rumpled version.

Links

I’m not the only one struck by the excellence of the idea, execution, and result. Critics and mathematicians love it.

• Great project https://cubes-revisited.art/about/ by Rob Weychert doesn’t restrict itself to connected edges so it has many more variations. It names my favorite “5/79”
• Sol LeWitt: Variations of Incomplete Cubes, 1974 mentions Open Cubes Revisited.
• https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/incomplete-open-cube-721/twFXS8060eN7LQ
• https://krex.k-state.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/dad3d273-0a8f-4d29-acf2-77cb6e715006/content
• https://socks-studio.com/2016/06/15/irrational-thoughts-should-be-followed-absolutely-and-logically-sol-lewitts-variations-of-incomplete-open-cubes-1974/
• https://www.math.ksu.edu/~rozhkovs/LeWitt_cubes.pdf
• https://engl328.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/krauss-lewitt-in-progress.pdf
• The Mathematical Tourist: Incomplete Open Cubes
• “Mind-Bending Shapes,” Scott Kim article in Discover Magazine in his Bogglers