Sol Lewitt Rules

Jonathan Monk’s first show with Yvon Lambert’s Paris gallery was in 1997 and the artist continued working with him until he closed in 2014. At some point in the early 2000’s Yvon gave Monk a ruler, stamped into the top are the initials SL and he was told that twenty years earlier Sol LeWitt left it behind after installing a show. This 30cm ruler was the starting point for the publication and the edition of 100 ceramic rulers it documents. Jonathan Monk’s rulers aren’t straight, they don’t have any numbers nor lines on them and each one is slightly different to the next. The process used is the one of extrusion, pushing manually the clay through a metal profile made exactly as the original ruler given to the artist by Yvon Lambert. Sol LeWitt Rules was produced at the historical ceramic workshop La Gioconda in Deruta, which in the 1980s worked closely with Sol LeWitt for his production of ceramic plates and tiles. This book includes 100 photographs of the 100 rulers made on the occasion of Jonathan Monk’s exhibition SL at the Torre Bonomo in Spoleto. The quicker you flick through it, the faster it moves.