Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Salatino, Kevin

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Description: Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

BOOKMel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22591

Encompassing both works on paper and oversized wall drawings made from the 1960s to the present, this handsomely designed volume documents the first-ever museum retrospective of drawings by Mel Bochner (b. 1940). Drawing has long been critical to the work of this pioneering conceptual artist, and essayists explore the theoretical framework and playful experimentation of his decades-long practice. The book, conceived and designed in close collaboration with the artist, features his own writings about his philosophy of wall drawings and reflections on significant exhibitions of his work. Bochner was a key figure of the Minimalist and Conceptual Art movements whose first exhibition in 1966 is now recognized as seminal. Today the artist is known for works in a range of media that explore the conventions of language and visual art as well as the relationships between them; his experimental works on paper, canvas, and wall—all of which are celebrated here—are a foundational facet of his practice and a critical influence on contemporary art.

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Author

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Print publication date April 2022 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300260052

EISBN 9780300269987

Illustrations 140

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Self/Portrait@80
Child's Play 1
36 Photographs and 12 Diagrams
Untitled
Exercise from School Mathematics Study Group
Alfaville, Godard's Apocalypse
Philadelphia Labyrinth
Quotation Piece: There is a Labyrinth
Rules of Inference
Dama
Jew
Portrait of Eva Hesse
Portrait of Duchamp
Portrait of Dan Flavin
monument for V. Tatlin
Still of Jack Palance in Le Mépris (Contempt)
Still of Monica Vitti in L'Avventura (The Adventure)
Still of Jason Robards in A Thousand Clowns
3
Study for Double Solid Based on Cantor's Paradox
Cantor's Paradox (Double)
Untitled (Study for 3-Way Fibonacci Progression)
3-Way Fibonacci Progression
Untitled (Child's Play!: Study for 7-Part Progression)
Child's Play 1
Project: Room-Block
Project: Floor Labyrinth
Project: Seven Tiers
Project: Forced Perspective
Portrait of Eva Hesse
Portrait of Sol LeWitt
Portrait of Robert Smithson
Self/Portrait
Minimal Art—The Movie
Cause and Effect
Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art
Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art
Four Sets: Rotations and Reversals
(N+1) Center Sets
Projected Plan for 42 Photographs Tri-Axial Rotation of a Cube
Untitled (Study for Isomorphic Circles)
Study for Photo Piece (One Point Perspective)
Tracing (Surface Deformation): Recrumpled
Pounce Drawing
Proposal for Wall Piece: Grids
Proposal for Wall Piece: Smudge
Superimposed Grids (Blue)
Jasper's Dilemma
Singer Notes
Singer Notes (Sheet 2)
Singer Notes (Sheet 43)
8 1/2" × 11"
8" Measurement
Measurement: 180 Degrees
Measurement Standards (page 3)
48" Standards (#1)
Measurement Standards (pages 5, 9, 15, 29, 33, 37)
Measurement Standards (pages 17, 21, 25, 41, 45, 49)
Measurement: Wall
Circle with 2 Measurements (By Formula)
A Study for Theory of Boundaries; #1–4
Counting (Rocks)
No Vantage Point: Eye-Level Crossection of Room
Theory of Painting (Part One)
Theory of Painting (Part Two)
Theory of Painting (Part Three)
Theory of Painting (Part Four)
Counting: 4 Rotations
Random Numbers #1
Notecards…
Notecards…
Language Is Not Transparent
Language Is Not Transparent
Eye Level: Estimated/Measured
Eye-Level Cross-Section (Estimated and Measured)
Continuous/Dis/Continuous
Wittgenstein Illustrations
Counting Alternatives: Second Reading (Rotations)
Counting Alternatives: Second Reading (Rotations)
Counting Alternatives: Second Reading (Rotations)
Counting Alternatives: Second Reading (Rotations)
Counting Alternatives: Second Reading (Rotations)
Fourth Range
Study for To Count: Transitive
Counting: Transitive (1–4)
Rules of Inference
Five by Four
Ten to 10 (Zones)
Three, Five, Four
Antecedent
Planar Arc
Four Shapes
Two Planar Arcs
Skeleton (Vertical)
Vertigo
Split Infinity
Perspective Insert
Measurement: 1" to 12"
Measurement: 1" to 12" (Color), detail
Yiskor (For the Jews of Rome)
Yiskor (For the Jews of Rome)
Counting: Intransitive (Red and Black)
Remarks on Color
Measurement 12" (Gray)
Measurement: 12" × 12" × 12"
Counting: 4 Rotations (Continuous #2)
Self-Portrait (After Chardin)
Wrap: Portrait of Eva Hesse
Blah, Blah, Blah
Blah, Blah, Blah
Blah, Blah, Blah
Oh Well
Working Drawing for Oh Well
Oh Well
Babble
Sputter
Jew (Study)
Jew
Don't Hold Your Breath
Exasperate
Blah, Blah, Blah
Blah Blah Blah
Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha
I Forget What I Forgot
Language Is Not Transparent (Babel)
Hesse Page, Judd Page, Scientific American (1), and LeWitt Page
Untitled (Study for Cantor's Paradox)
Study for Atoll
Smudge
Do I Have To Draw You A Picture?

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Contents

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Contents

Author

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22592

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Foreword

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

For nearly sixty years, Mel Bochner’s art has taken many forms, including drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, installation, and books. Of these, drawing—as concept, process, object—has been fundamental to his practice, yet no museum exhibition has focused exclusively on this essential medium. Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective is the first to use...

Author

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22593

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Acknowledgments

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Many people were instrumental in making the exhibition and catalogue Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective. I am indebted first and foremost to Mel Bochner, who not only critically influenced the project’s development and execution but also has welcomed Art Institute curators into his studio and home over the years, showing his personal collection of drawings and sharing his...

Author

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22594

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Bochner’s Labyrinths

Anna Lovatt

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Mel Bochner’s Child’s Play 1 (fig. 1) is an irregular polyhedron made up of two-cubic-inch blocks of wood, the grain of which is visible through an uneven layer of black paint. The modest scale, humble materials, and...

Author

Anna Lovatt

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.13-27

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.1

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22595

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesMathematics in artArtists--Portraits

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Toward Contingency

Barry Schwabsky

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Works on paper? Or drawings? Mel Bochner’s work poses many questions, only some of which I can touch on here. But even this simple, almost trivial, classificatory dilemma exposes a diffculty about how and whether to rationalize an experience that is part of the essential content of the artist’s oeuvre. What, fundamentally, are we looking at? What are we talking about? Can the looking...

Author

Barry Schwabsky

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.29-39

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.2

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22596

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesDrawing--TechniqueArtists--PortraitsColor in art

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Plates

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Plates

Author

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.42-173

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.3

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22597

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesMathematics in artColor in art

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Four Texts on Drawing

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Four Texts on Drawing

Author

Kevin Salatino (Editor)

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.4

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22598

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Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art

Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

In the fall of 1966, the director of the School of Visual Arts gallery in New York invited me, a young art history instructor at the school, to curate a “Christmas” exhibition of drawings by contemporary artists. My original idea was to organize an exhibition on the theme of “working drawings.” Unlike a sketch, with its projected reference to a final visual form, a working...

Author

Mel Bochner

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.177-178

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.5

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22599

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesDrawing--Exhibitions

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Anyone Can Learn to Draw

Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

This exhibition brings together drawings by a variety of artists. Some are painters, some make three-dimensional works, some are not easily classified. All of these artists find a use for drawings, even though in much recent art drawing has been held in disrepute. The reason for this disrepute is probably due to the autographic nature of previous drawing, or the questionable notion of drawing as...

Author

Mel Bochner

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.179-180

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.6

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22600

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesDrawing--ExhibitionsArtists' preparatory studies

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Drawing

Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

Drawing couples a directness of means with an ease of revision. This gives thought and feeling a direct access to visibility. The tools are simple . . . something to make a mark, an eraser, a sheet of paper. Each material has a particular quality, the choice of which gives a drawing its “color.” Charcoal is dry and burnt, pastel is thick and luminous, Conté crayon is crisp and...

Author

Mel Bochner

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.183-183

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.7

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22601

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesDrawing--Technique

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Why Would Anyone Want to Draw on the Wall?

Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective

In the spring of 1970, the Jewish Museum opened Using Walls, the first museum survey to explore the phenomenon of artworks drawn directly on the wall. Included in the exhibition were Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Tuttle, Daniel Buren, and myself. At the opening of the exhibition, I happened to overhear a young painter say, “I still don’t get it, why...

Author

Mel Bochner

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Related print edition pages: pp.185-187

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00315.8

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22602

Chapter subject tags:Bochner, Mel, 1940-Conceptual art--United StatesMural painting and decorationGraffiti

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