Conceptual art emphasizes ideas over a physical product, and Sol LeWitt starts Serial Project, I with the idea rather than the form, initiating a process that obeys certain rules, and determines the form by playing itself out. Serial Project, I shows the combinations of both open and closed enameled aluminum squares, cubes, and extensions of all these shapes laid in a grid.
LeWitt’s system of organization gives its viewers all the clues they need to solve the puzzle of its logic. “The aim of the artist would not be to instruct the viewer but to give him information,” wrote LeWitt in a text accompanying this work. The basic forms and industrial materials of Serial Project, I (ABCD) and the idea that gives form to the work of art make it a combination of both Conceptualist and Minimalist principles.