Quotes from Sol LeWitt

The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the System. The visual aspect can't be understood without understanding the system. It isn't what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.

The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.

Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.

Buying books was a way anyone could acquire a work of art for very little.

Artists teach critics what to think. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.

You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

The idea becomes a machine that makes art.

You shouldn't be a prisoner of your own ideas.

I didn't want to save art - I respected the older artists too much to think art needed saving. But I knew it was finished, even though, at that time, I didn't know what I would do.

Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus.

Minimalism wasn't a real idea - it ended before it started.

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators.

Artists of many diverse types began using simple forms to their own ends.

Every generation renews itself in its own way; there's always a reaction against whatever is standard.

Unless you're involved with thinking about what you're doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over, and that becomes tedious and, in the end, defeating.

All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art.

I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art.

The thinking of John Cage derived from Duchamp and Dada. I was not interested in that.

Minimal art went nowhere.

You belong in the most secret part of you. Don't worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you—draw and paint your fear and anxiety.

Once it is out of his hand the artist has no control over the way a viewer will perceive the work. Different people will understand the same thing in a different way.

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work

A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind.