The Location of Lines

Aug 29, 2020 – Feb 21, 2021

Key Images of Artworks in the Exhibition

Sol LeWitt, American, 1928–2007. The Location of Lines, 1974. Offset on paper; saddle-stitched, and softcover. 2 copies; 8 × 8 in. (20.3 × 20.3 cm), 48 pp. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, National Endowment for the Arts Museum Purchase Grant and Gift of the Men's Council, 2012.105. © 2020 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

About the Exhibition

Lines are the first gesture in writing, drawing, and sculpture making them central to representation. While we often describe lines as definitive—“a line in the sand,” or “crossing the line”—artists in this exhibition play with these limits, revealing how they can change and move.

Taking the title from a Sol LeWitt artist's book, The Location of Lines further examines the form of a line in the context of space and politics. Through a variety of representations in the prints, drawings, photographs, and videos that make up the exhibition, viewers are invited to reconsider the line and its meaning, both in imagination and in reality. These uses span from the abstract to the concrete: the line as a form, as a symbol, as a concept, and ultimately as a geographic border. Each artwork reveals how lines, limits, and borders are constructed and how they can change. After all, for those in power, lines can be erased just as easily as they are drawn.

The exhibition is organized by Line Ajan, Barjeel Global Fellow. It is presented in the Cohen Gallery and Stone Family Gallery on the fourth floor.