Author Description

When published, "Autobiography" was one of LeWitt's eighteen "artist books" and one of six photography books...These books are no less profound than "Autobiography", but "Autobiography" is a more complex, ambitious, and in some respects, intimate project...In "Autobiography" LeWitt presents more than a thousand black-and-white images in grids, generally nine to a page. The artist catalogues virtually every corner, crevice, and item in his loft. We see an aggregate of unposed images - the bare facts of his everyday existence. We investigate each image, but the significance of this autobiography derives from the connection between images on a page, on a spread, and from page to page, as much as from any individual picture... LeWitt's artist books situate themselves among dozens of the artist's structures, wall drawings, drawings, and prints. For LeWitt, none of these works or media occupies a privileged position. Each work is a part of a chain of artistic production. Every work is part of a nonhierarchical whole. Thus, contradictorily, LeWitt's "Autobiography" purports to be just another work, yet its special significance is undeniable...In "Autobiography", Lewitt presents the life of the artist as the life of a particular person, in a particular culture, at a particular time and place. Nevertheless, "Autobiography" is unique in his oeuvre. For LeWitt, whose drawings, wall drawings, and structures are seemingly so pure and pared down, "Autobiography is an unparalleled work. While it takes its place as one work among "equals," it is singular in its demonstration that LeWitts's abstract, geometric forms are inextricable from the experience of his life and culture."--from Adam Weinberg's "LeWitt's Autobiography: Inventory to the Present".