Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper Gallery

Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings – some 1,200 sets of instructions for turning architecture into art – range from the simple (e.g. drawing lines in patterns going up, down and to the side) to the kind of full-room, immersive installation currently on view at Paula Cooper Gallery.  Energizing but restrained, a matte, fresco-like orange tone dominates, setting off multi-hued, isometric pyramids of various colors that seem to float through space.  In the center of the gallery, white enamel on aluminum sculptures resemble tips of icebergs adrift on the gallery’s polished concrete floor.  Surrounded by angular geometries in the cavernous rectangle of the gallery, visitors inhabit a parallel universe governed by alternative rules of color and space.  (On view on 21st Street in Chelsea through Oct 22nd).

Sol LeWitt, Wall drawing #485 (detail), three asymmetrical pyramids with color ink washes superimposed, color wash ink, 1986. Sol LeWitt, Complex Form #6 (to the right, detail), enamel on aluminum, 1987/1988.

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Merrily Kerr

Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education. For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine. Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)