Austere seriality: an inspired pairing of two influential American conceptualists

Working from the 1960s on, Lewis Baltz (1945-2014) and Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) developed pared-down visual languages to explore the structures of spatial processes and permutation. Baltz, in photographic series such as The Prototype Works, Tract Houses and Park City, united traditions of documentary photography and avant-garde art to depict the iconography of postindustrial society–signs, walls, parking lots, suburban homes.

LeWitt’s works in sculpture, such as his Serial Project and his massive Black Cubes, highlight an absence of function and an austere seriality. Much like Baltz, LeWitt deploys consistent measurement as the basis for many of his works. Both artists’ groundbreaking works are included in this suggestive pairing. Works by both artists are documented in numerous exhibition views and individual illustrations with further illumination from texts by Baltz and LeWitt.