Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings are infamous renditions of the organized chaos of life and artistic endeavors.

Seen as the founder of Minimalism and Conceptualism, Sol LeWitt believed that the concept of a work was more important than the form it took. This led to simple, yet massive, designs that cannot be mistaken for anything but a Sol LeWitt creation. Each wall drawing has a certain flair despite repeating variations on a single principle - the form of a line. Wall Drawing 132 is no exception. Using the incredible and slightly mysterious combination of repetition and variance, LeWitt uses his artistic acumen to reflect the passion and lively scrawl of a young child’s organized scribble.

Sol LeWitt has quite a bit in common with Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. Both have the power to create a world and atmosphere with a single stroke of their crayon - in Harold’s case, a magical purple one. Like Harold transforming his bedroom into a new world, Sol LeWitt has run through the museum, transforming the traditional white walls into an abstract looping of graphite and crayon. Like a naughty child drawing on his bedroom wall, this wall drawing is meant to be impermanent, redrawn every time it is put on view.

Despite these similarities, Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing 132 differs from Harold’s purple crayon world in two major ways. First of all, rather than being a freeform creation, Wall Drawing 132 was meticulously planned by Sol LeWitt, each line and loop perfectly placed. Secondly, Sol LeWitt doesn’t execute the wall drawing. That splendid task is assigned to someone from his studio who follows the exact instructions to the letter - or rather loop. The intentional variance and chaos implicit in Sol LeWitt’s design is somewhat overshadowed by the immense order required to execute the design. What looks like a child’s playfulness - or naughtiness - is suddenly art. While Sol LeWitt and his studio are invited to draw and violate the sanctity of the museum’s white walls, hopefully this doesn’t seem like an invitation to young or overly enthusiastic visitors to do the same...