Sol LeWitt’s Tangled Bands is characterized by a torrent of playful, curvilinear lines. Covering the entire surface of the paper seemingly at random, this free-flowing composition executed in gouache, an opaque water-based paint, reflects the fluidity of the medium itself. The translucent bands threaten to spill over the edges of the paper creating the illusion of potentially infinite, labyrinthine expansion. This quality, which unifies LeWitt’s gouaches, locates these works on paper within the traditions of American abstract painting of the 1940s, recalling the “allover” style of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and others. Although LeWitt’s Conceptual art from the beginning of his career can retrospectively be read as a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, premised on the tension that exists between ideas and form, LeWitt’s leap from verbally succinct concept to original object nevertheless produces a similar kind of cognitive dissonance.

Though the present work, produced in the final decades of LeWitt’s life, is eccentric in form and individualistic in execution compared to the rigid, geometric forms which characterize his earlier oeuvre, it remains in alignment with his original artistic intent. Governed by an exacting set of guidelines, the bands of pale colour cascading over the surface of the paper are all a standard width and only intersect at a perpendicular angle, retaining a sliver of negative space between parallel forms. Through these cracks, a darker, more opaque shade of pigment can be seen, giving the illusion of depth. The increased spacial depth and tonal complexity exhibited in this work signals LeWitt’s maturation as an artist and expansion of his visual vocabulary following his move to Italy in the 1980s. There, the artists discovered frescoes by Renaissance masters who inspired him to create something that he “would not be ashamed to show Giotto”, as the artist was quoted as saying in 1982 (Sol LeWitt in conversation with Andrea Miller-Keller, in: Adachiara Zevi, Ed., Sol LeWitt: Critical Texts, Rome 1995). This realisation prompted the artist to re-engage with his works by executing them in his own hand, even going so far as to mix his own paints.

This artistic development represents a breakthrough in his career, deviating from his earlier works in the 1960s and 1970s which challenged modern conceptions of originality, authorship, and artistic genius by promoting the idea behind the work as the primary artistic output, surpassing the physical work itself. Therefore, apart from his original works on paper, including the present work, LeWitt’s oeuvre is executed by others according to his clear and strict instructions. In 1971, the artist reflected that "If the artist carried through his idea and makes it into visible form, then all the steps in the process are of importance. The idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product." However, LeWitt is keen to clarify that "All intervening steps, scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed work models, studies thoughts, conversations, are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are somet.mes s more interesting than the final product" (Sol LeWitt, 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art', Artforum Vol. 5, No. 10, Summer 1967, pp. 79-83). Tangled Bands seems evidence enough of this, with its complex webs of lines marrying chaos with order, allowing the viewer to glimpse LeWitt’s intention.

LeWitt was constantly evolving as an artist, building upon previously explored concepts and stretching them as far as they would go, seeing each new work as a proposition, a new question. Epitomizing this outlook on art, when asked about the shift in his work in the 1980s ushered in by his gouache works, the artist replied simply, “Why not?” (Michael Kimmelman, ‘Sol LeWitt, Master of Conceptualism, Dies at 78’, The New York t.mes s, 9 April 2007, online). LeWitt’s drive for innovation and belief in the artist as a generator of ideas continues to inspire emerging artists today.