A team consisting of ten faculty, students, and alumni have spent the last several days at the University of Virginia Art Museum employing steady hands in preparation for the installation of "Wall Drawing #394" by American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). Like many of his murals, the drawing is meant to be repeatedly replicated by teams of artists closely following LeWitt’s written instructions. The piece will be displayed at the museum in an exhibition opening next month, "The Hand and the Soul: LeWitt, Slutzky, Iliescu” (February 6 to April 19).

LeWitt has been in the national news recently upon the November, 2008 opening of a 27,000 sq. ft. exhibition of his wall drawings at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective," a collaboration between the Yale University Art Gallery, MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), and the Williams College Museum of Art will be on display for 25 years.

Organized by Sanda Iliescu, associate professor of architecture and art, and led by Roland Lusk (Col’01), a LeWitt assistant who has traveled to U.Va. to assist with the installation, the LeWitt drawing to be displayed here has been divided into ten equal portions – one series of 30 square blocks per team member. The first step in the process was to create a grid in pencil on the wall, using as straight a line as possible. Afterwards, the artists began to form concepts for each section, “Each of us used our own method of determining our particular composition. [Students] then put all our compositions together to create a master map using Rhino 3-D Modeling,” said Iliescu.

The team consists of Iliescu, Lusk, and the following students and alumni: Patrick Costello (studio art); Lauren Hackney (architecture); Erin Hannegan (BSArch’02, MArch’08); Maggie Hansen (architecture); Tom Hogge (architecture); Hana Kim (BSArch’02, MArch’08); Evans Martin (landscape architecture), Rachel Singel (studio art) and Supriya Sudan (architecture).

Work continues on the mural, with plans to complete it this week. Iliescu is thrilled by the process and has found deep meaning in working hands-on with LeWitt’s simple lines: “We are now proceeding and the deep black lines are lovely; but even more lovely is the contemplative, intensely aesthetic experience of making them. I never expected this. Making a LeWitt line is such a rewarding experience. I try to keep the line looking consistent and flexible at all times. I work with the texture of the wall gradually, the line darkening only very slowly. But I love the in-between stages of the line because it so beautifully mirrors the tactile quality of the wall. It is as if I am listening to the wall...,” she said.

A symposium will be held on April 16 and a book edited by Iliescu, "The Hand and the Soul: Aesthetics and Ethics in Architecture and Art," will be released by UVa Press this spring.