Mel Bochner Libros

The book showcases a collection of writings by Mel Bochner, a prominent conceptual artist, exploring the intersection of art and writing over four decades. It includes reviews, theoretical texts, interviews, and innovative magazine interventions, many presented in facsimile. Bochner reflects on the skepticism artists faced for writing, while also challenging the boundaries between criticism and visual art. This compilation not only documents his evolution as an artist but also provides insights into the conceptual and post-minimal art movements in New York.

Mel Bochner (born 1940) coined some of Postminimalist and Conceptual art's most characteristic strategies--the gallery as subject, language as material, the photo documentation of works as the work itself, the appropriation of ephemeral materials by other artists--and directed those strategies towards a radical excavation of all that had been rendered peripheral to art's content. In the mid- to late 1960s, Bochner became deeply involved with photography, producing a groundbreaking group of photographs that hover tantalizingly between painting and photography. Mel Bochner: Photographs and Not Photographs presents reproductions of these early works, as well as the artist's classic 1970 essay "Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography)" and a selection of wall drawings and paintiings. Bochner has collaborated closely on the design of this beautifully produced volume, the cover of which is made of sturdy plexiglas.