Instructions

WALL DRAWING
BOSTON MUSEUM

On a wall surface, any
continuous stretch of wall,
using a hard pencil, place
fifty points at random.

The points should be evenly
distributed over the area
of the wall. All the
points should be connected
by straight lines.

SOL LEWITT
Wall drawing, Boston Museum

Exercise

Step 1

Create Instructions for creating a two–dimensional composition on a piece of letter size paper, in the style of Sol LeWitt. Try and create instructions for a composition that you find beautiful. The composition can be referencing another artists work.

• The instruction should have at least 10 steps.
• It should take about 10 minutes to execute the instructions.
• The final result should be on a letter size sheet of paper.

Execute your instructions yourself at least three times before Monday's class. How do your three outcomes vary (or not) based on your instructions. Look for ways your compositions can flex based on how your wrote the rules.

Bring your 3 outcomes on Monday, along with:

• Your instructions printed out at 12pt set in a monospace font.
• A blank sheet of paper.
• Any tools you need to execute your instructions.

If you're having trouble coming up with the idea for a composition, check out the references below, or consider the work of Josef Albers

Step 2

In class, I'll pair you up with another student. You'll trade instructions and execute them (without intervention from the student who wrote the instructions!

We'll discuss how this process felt together, consider:

As the instructor: Does your teammate’s drawing meet your expectation? Were there any surprises? If you were to make it clearer, what would you do?

As performer: Were there any point in instruction that was too ambiguous or specific to you? How much of freedom were you given?