Sol LeWitt: Cubes

[Sol LeWitt](https://www.artsy.net/artist/sol-lewitt) had a lifelong fascination with cubes, driven by his desire to blur the lines between arithmetic and art. [Believing](https://www.themodern.org/blog/The-Idea-Becomes-the-Machine-That-Makes-the-Art/372) that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art,” LeWitt viewed the six-sided cube as a boundless idea that could be manufactured again and again in a variety of forms, from patterns on paper to towering geometric sculptures. For example, in _Incomplete Open Cubes_ (1974–1982), LeWitt calculated every way the shape could appear “incomplete” yet still three- dimensional, rendering his findings in a series of model cubes that had anywhere from one to nine missing limbs. In his [own words](https://www.nga.gov/education/teachers/lessons-activities/new-angles/sol-lewitt.html), the cube “lacked the expressive force of more interesting forms and shapes,” so it was an ideal candidate for deconstruction and multiplication.