I Don't Get It / I Still Don't Get It

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Mel Bochner
I Don't Get It / I Still Don't Get It
2014

About the Item

We are a 1stdibs Platinum Seller with 100% 5-star reviews. These two famous pieces, sold as a pair are two etchings with aquatint signed by Mel Bochner and numbered # 9 /20. What a conversation starter! One of the champions of Conceptual Art, Mel Bochner pioneered techniques now considered self-evident by conceptual and installation artists. For nearly 50 years he has investigated the intersections of linguistic and visual representation, provoking the viewer not only to look but also to think on seeing his work. The mid-1960s marked Bochner's radical departure from the art establishment when he began using geometric and verbal systems to influence the content of his work. Born in 1940, Bochner was one of the first to prioritize art as a procedure, stepping away from the notion of art having to be something tangible. In 1966 Mel Bochner organized what is now considered to be the first Conceptual Art exhibition. While he was teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Bochner's show entitled Working Drawings And Other Visible Things On Paper Not Necessarily Meant To Be Viewed As Art was the first time the concept of the presentation became the most significant aspect of the work itself. It was a defining moment, but by the late 60s Bochner had already moved on to focus on organized systems of thought such as language and mathematics. In his work Measurement Room Mel Bochner allowed the gallery space itself to become the artwork. Although essentially meaningless the measurements were rational and objective like a system of knowledge. What was distinctive about this work was the manner in which the world had been made into a kind of palatable essence, understood by human reason while at the same time revealing pure nothingness. Continuing to use gallery locations for his work, Mel Bochner made drawings that followed specific systems adhering to the measurements of the exhibition space. From the early 80s Bochner began focusing on painting and prints featuring words and phrases that used both colorful language as well as colorful tones. Exploring the conventions and grammar of common everyday vocabulary Bochner's work on Yiddish is highly regarded. In 1985 the Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery honored the artist with a major exhibition entitled Mel Bochner: 1975-1985 and in 1995 The Yale University Art Gallery dedicated a further retrospective to Mel Bochner with the title Thought Made Visible 1966-1973. Mel Bochner’s approach and materials constantly vary; in fact, the artist formally disavowed allegiance to a single material in his famous essay titled “the Medium and the Tedium” (2010). Bochner—who has produced paintings, installations, and photography—is noted to be one of the most influential pioneers of Conceptual art, and the organizer of the first Conceptual art exhibition in 1966. A recurring theme in Bochner’s work is the relationship between language and physical space or color. This is famously demonstrated in his “Measurement” installations of the late 1960s, visualizing the exact dimensions of rooms and exhibition spaces, and thesaurus-inspired paintings of a single word and its synonyms. Solo shows 2019 Mel Bochner: Exasperations, Simon Lee Gallery, London MEL BOCHNER: Mirror Works, Krakow Witkin Gallery, Boston 2018 Mel Bochner, Recent Prints, Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art, New York Mel Bochner, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Toronto Amazing! Mel Bochner Prints from the Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation, Philbrook Downtown, Tulsa, USA 2017 MEL BOCHNER "Singer Notes", mfc - michèle didier, Paris Mel Bochner: BLAH BLAH BLAH, Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong 2016 Mel Bochner, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montreal Verba Volant Scripta Manent, TOTAH, New York 2014 Mel Bochner: Going Out Of Business! (and other recent paintings on velvet), Simon Lee Gallery, London

Creator:
Mel Bochner (1940, American)
Creation Year:
2014
Dimensions:
Height: 22 in (55.88 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
Medium:
Etching,Aquatint
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
21st Century
Condition:
One will not find a better I Don't Get It / I Still Don't Get It than this pair.
Gallery Location:
Boca Raton, FL
Reference Number:
Seller: Photorealism of Boca Raton Bochner Collection1stDibs: LU5045323131

Shop All Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner experimented with a range of styles before finding his eventual success as a pioneer in Conceptual art. An audacious 1966 show at School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan that he presented, “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art,” remains a seminal touchstone for Conceptualism.

Bochner was born to a Pittsburgh sign painter in 1940. While attending the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon) in the late 1950s, he studied color theory and modernist movements as well as classical drawing, a balance that was formative in his career. After graduation, he moved to San Francisco, creating paintings influenced by Clyfford Still and Jean Dubuffet.

It wasn’t until Bochner “found his way out of the labyrinth of late Abstract Expressionism,” as he put it to The Brooklyn Rail, that he began to create his most meaningful work. Following a stint auditing philosophy classes after a friend introduced him to the work of Heidegger, Bochner relocated to New York, finding work as a guard at the Jewish Museum. In Manhattan, he ran in the same circles as Dan Flavin, Brice Marden and Donald Judd.

“One of the conversations going on in New York in the late ’60s was about the relationship of the object to the art experience,” Bochner said. “...Younger artists like myself were talking about what it would mean to eliminate the object altogether.” This idea would become the foundation of the Conceptual movement, in which Bochner was instrumental. The artist is probably best known for his text-focused paintings, including a series that plays with the phrase “Blah Blah Blah.” He produces work that regards art as an experience, rather than an object, centering on the process of creation and viewership as opposed to the finished product.

Bochner’s “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art” featured drawings, notes and outlines from the likes of Milton Glaser, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt and others as well as pages from Scientific American. Bochner, then an art history professor at SVA, photocopied the assemblage of works, added them to binders and positioned them on pedestals for the exhibition because the show’s organizers lacked the funds to frame the pieces.

Bochner’s works can be found in the collections of many major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Find original Mel Bochner prints and other art on 1stDibs.