DUSSELDORF.- Under the title Lines and Lines. Sol LeWitt and Konrad Fischer. Traces of a Close Cooperation, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen pays tribute to the inventor and influential representative of American conceptual art in the Dorothee and Konrad Fischer Archive at K21 from July 27, 2021 until the end of the year.

1967: In June, the American artist Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) published the essential principles of his conceptual art for the first time in Artforum: “What the work of art looks like isn’t too important [...] No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea.” With such principals as well as his minimalistic works — Modular Wall Structure, 1967/2005 is on display — Sol LeWitt would change art permanently.

At the end of the same year, Konrad Fischer (1939–1996) opened his first gallery space in Düsseldorf at Neubrückstrasse 12 with a floor piece by Carl Andre. Andre put Fischer in touch with Sol LeWitt, whose work the budding gallerist — at the time still active as an artist himself — presumably first took notice of in 1967 at the exhibition “Serial Formations” in Frankfurt am Main.

LeWitt’s first solo show in Europe, which opened in Düsseldorf on January 6, 1968, became the starting point for a long-standing professional and friendly relationship. This is evidenced not only by the twelve exhibitions that Fischer presented through 1993 and the numerous projects he initiated, but also by the extensive correspondence, especially the many postcards from all over the world that Sol LeWitt addressed to his gallerist and friend.

The motifs selected by the sender reveal his interest in unusual architecture, in technology and speed, in the beauty of art as well as the curiosities of everyday life. The short messages, occasionally accompanied by sketches, are about joint projects, sales, and exhibitions; others are of a purely private nature. On display is a selection of postcards from the early years of the collaboration, 1967 to 1977.