Ohio Art- Sol LeWitt at Akron Art Museum

 Akron, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Design, Drawing, Installation Art, Ohio Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Sep 092025
 

In honor of artist Sol LeWitt‘s birthday today (9/9), here is his work Wall Drawing #1240, Planes with broken bands of color (Akron), located at Akron Art Museum. It was created in 2005 and installed at the museum in 2007.

The piece was drawn by Megan Dyer, Tomas Ramberg, Joe Ayala, Jennifer Bair-Shipman, Ashlie Dyer, Kathy Ilg, Sarah Sutton and Kelly Urquhart.

From the museum about the work-

Presiding over the McDowell Grand Lobby is a wall drawing by Sol LeWitt, one of the leading artists of his time. LeWitt’s approach to art stressed rigorous design and geometric abstraction, rejecting narrative, emotion and representation for the reality of art’s elemental components—line, shape, space, color and the most important, concept.

LeWitt began creating wall drawings in 1968 in response to his concern-and that of other artists at the time-that art was becoming too much of a commodity. These drawings are not so much physical objects as ideas. The artist conceived and planned them; his “drafters” (artists themselves) draw them directly on the walls of museums and public spaces around the world. Drawings may share forms and motifs, but each is unique and many, like Akron’s, are site specific.

Wall Drawing #1240 was created by the artist for the 18 by 34 foot wall where the museum’s historic 1899 building and its 2007 expansion interconnect. The triangular shapes refer to the angled supports and folded forms of the newer glass and steel lobby, while the blocks of color echo the brick wall removed from the south façade of the older building. Two drafters, assisted by area artists, worked for five weeks to fabricate the wall drawing.

 

Ohio Public Art- Axel Void Mural in Akron

 Akron, Art, Artists, Ohio Street Art, Painting / Painters, Public Art, Street Art
Jan 312025
 

This mural in Akron by Axel Void was organized by Curated Storefront and is based on a photograph taken with a ring camera and posted on the Neighbors app.

From Curated Storefront about the work-

This piece is a note on human inter-relational experience. The work presents a highly specific, anonymous interaction between neighbors in the digital realm.

The image is sourced from a post on the Neighbors app, a location based message board designed to connect Ring doorbell cameras into a network of private surveillance, with the intention of “always knowing what is happening in your neighborhood with real time, hyper local safety.”

The posting was created on June 18th, 2022 by an anonymous neighbor 3.4 miles away from the site of the mural. The post is titled: “Unknown visitors, Strange kids at my door 10:30 pm do you recognize them?” The Ring doorbell footage shows a young man at the door for about one minute; the footage is grainy and black and white, he is hard to make out and shuffles from side to side; a friend waits in the background on a bicycle. Twelve commenters on the post argue on whether or not the boy appears suspicious, or if he is merely looking for his lost dog; casing the house or calling for help.

This piece proposes a discussion point on irrational fear, the changing nature of surveillance, and an overarching sense of paranoia in modern society.