So this pair of shoes inspired a trip down an Art rabbit hole today. While looking at a catalog I spotted these Jimmy Choos and thought two things:
1. These shoes take me back Jawbreaker-eating, carefree summers in the 80’s, when I’d wear rainbow colored flip flops.
2. The shoe pattern bears an uncanny resemblance to a Sol LeWitt.
When I think of Sol LeWitt, I’m reminded of SF MOMA’s atrium which housed the most magnificent drawings whose vibrant colors have been seared into my memory. For 8 years LeWitt’s Wall Drawings #935 and #936 were featured in the lobby. The works were practically ingrained in the architecture, yet I never realized that they could be removed. Sadly, in 2008 they were de-commissioned to make room for a large scale sculpture installation.
You can paint over the work but you can’t erase the memory. Sol LeWitt passed away in 2007 and the NY Times wrote an excellent retrospective that contextualizes the impermanence of his art:
“Maybe because it dovetailed with his lack of pretense: having started to make wall drawings for exhibitions in the 1960s, he embraced the fact that these could be painted over after the shows. (Walls, unlike canvases or pieces of paper, kept the drawings two-dimensional, he also thought.) He wasn’t making precious one-of-a-kind objects for posterity, he said. Objects are perishable. But ideas need not be.”
In his later works, LeWitt took an architect’s approach to his art. He would draft renderings drawn to scale which would then be executed by other painters.
I have a better appreciation for the artist and his process, and if there’s any silver lining in my posthumous tribute to this artist and these two amazing drawings is that the renderings for these works are still in the possession of MOMA and can be re-created at any time.
I’d love to see MOMA bring back #935 and #936…
And I’d show up wearing the Jimmy Choos.
Culture Shock Art 