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Variations on a Theme by Sol LeWitt & Paula Robison
September 23 – November 13, 2005

Artist Sol LeWitt and flutist Paula Robison have been friends since they first met, in the early 1980s, at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. Variations on a Theme brings together works from the realms of music and visual art, and discovers through this interaction a profound and dynamic balance between these internationally renowned artists. Their creative collaboration stems from a deep mutual trust, resulting in a fusion of talent, mind, and passion.

As part of this project, once a day a Mozart flute quartet is performed in the Gardner's Special Exhibition Gallery, where LeWitt's wall drawing provides visual counterpoint to the music. The wall drawing engages the flatness of the museum wall with nine colors, or tones, that are “played” over and over in unison, pushing against and beyond the physical properties of the room, and expanding the identity of the site. Gardner Artist-in-Residence Robison says:

    LeWitt’s work is profoundly musical. He combines discipline and freedom,     motion and repose, elegance and mischief with the same sure hand that
    guided Mozart, and he achieves the same luminous balance.

LeWitt's drawing was brought to life as an idea that was documented by the artist's sketch and a more formal diagram outlining instructions for its implementation. Takeshi Arita, a trained “drawer”, who travels around the world on commission for LeWitt, worked with two local artists, April Gymiski and Reese Inman to execute the drawing over a period of three weeks.

A musical score by Mozart and a set of instructions for a LeWitt wall drawing are constant—although their physical manifestations are of course subject to change. A performance of a Mozart flute quartet exists as one enactment of an idea that is recorded on paper as musical notation. In a similar way, LeWitt's diagram for a wall drawing is a constant: the physical placement of its implementation may change, but a change in location will never compromise the work's original meaning.

Variations on a Theme thus brings together two artistic constants: one musical, one visual. The conceptual resonance between them is complex and charged—and ultimately finds its own universality.

Photos by Clements/Howcroft.

Numbering over 50 artists in 13 years, the Gardner’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2005 is made possible, in part, by the Barbara Lee Program Fund, The Ford Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, the Thomas Anthony Pappas Charitable Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Nimoy Foundation.