Amnesia at play: free sol Lewitt by superflex at the Van Abbemuseum

For Play Van Abbe, an exhibition program that invited artists to question the function of the museum in the 21st century, the Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX commissioned professional welders to reproduce a specific artwork from the collection: Untitled (Wall Structure) by Sol LeWitt, 1972. Relying on the 1967 Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, in which LeWitt stated that “[t]he idea becomes a machine that makes the art,” SUPERFLEX argued that the geometric wall sculpture could be regarded as a piece of information waiting to be ‘liberated.’ FREE SOL LEWITT playfully tackled historical and present-day questions of authorship, authenticity, originality as well as the ensuing laws of copyright and usage. Proceeding from the surprising omission of significant archival material on LeWitt’s relationship with the institution, this paper will question the project’s acclaimed critical engagement with the preservation and fabrication of collective cultural memory in the contemporary museum.