Spiral - Walldrawing # 801 
Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt
1928 Hartford (Conn.) – New York 2007


Sol LeWitt is one of today's most influential artists and is best known for his large-scale wall drawings. At the root of every wall drawing by Sol LeWitt lies a precisely formulated assignment, or concise work description. This contains all the painting instructions which his assistants – often artists – have to follow as precisely as possible. In the execution, LeWitt's strict concepts appear infinitely more inviting than one would expect from the original underlying principle. This is also the case with 'Wall drawing #801 : Spiral', which was executed for the first time in the Cupola of the museum in 1996. The essentially simple principle of a slightly sloping white line spanning the whole Cupola produces an overwhelming result in practise. 

Wall drawing #801 : Spiral, 1996
inv 5291 │ gift of the artist 2002 

The walldrawing is on show for the third time at the Bonnefanten: it was first realized in 1996, and then in 2005, at the occasion of the museum's building 10th anniversary.


A few facts:

Distance between the lines 10 cm
Total lenghth tape ± 5,7 km
Total surface 472 m²
143 turns


The whole process of applying Sol LeWitt's Spiral #801 in the cupola has been filmed, and will be part of a documentary by Chris Teerink about the work and ideas of Sol LeWitt. The movie will be released in theaters. A shorter version will be broadcasted in the Close Up series by the AVRO. The film is produced by Doc.Eye Film Amsterdam.