16B

16B is a classic work by American artist Sol LeWitt, completely in keeping with the modular, serial sculptures he began to create in the later 1960s. Its form and structure reflect the principles of Conceptual art that LeWitt was developing around the same time. 16B takes the shape of a tall, irregular tower of open cubes made with thin pieces of balsa wood. It is wider at its base than at its top, tapering as it rises. 16B unfurls according to a set of rules or serial procedures that LeWitt determined beforehand and followed methodically, thereby taking chance, expression, and artistic subjectivity out of the equation. Although Conceptual art is generally associated with rationality, LeWitt believed the exact opposite was true." "In a logical sequence," he wrote, "you don’t think about it. It is a way of not thinking. It is irrational." 16B produces visual effects as irrational as its underlying tenets. Here the balsa wood legs cast shadows that multiply and disarrange the modules, with the latter acting as frames that fracture the surrounding space.