{"data":{"id":"140","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":140,"topgoose_id":2883,"tms_id":140,"display_name":"Mel Bochner","sort_name":"Bochner Mel","display_date":"1940–2025","begin_date":"1940","end_date":"2025","biography":"\u003cp\u003eMel Bochner has made conceptually\nand perceptually driven paintings, sculptures,\ndrawings, photographs, and installations\nsince the mid-1960s, often plumbing\nthe relationships between language, space,\nobjects, and color. He is credited with\nhaving kickstarted the Conceptual art\nmovement in a 1966 exhibition for which he\nphotocopied working drawings and other\npaper materials solicited from artist\nfriends, placed the identically reproduced\nitems in four black binders, then displayed\nthem on pedestals in a gallery. In the\nlate 1960s Bochner began to make site-\nspecific projects consisting of ruled\nmeasurements in paint or tape and transfer-\ntype numbers applied directly to gallery\nwalls, turning these seemingly neutral\nspaces into life-sized diagrams of themselves.\nSuch works challenge conventional notions\nof abstract thought and perception, testing\nBochner’s assertion that “outside the\nspoken word, no thought can exist without\na sustaining support.” He underscores\nthis thesis in works that invert the\nrepresentational system of photography.\nRather than “using [photography] to\nlook at something,” Bochner demonstrates\nhow the medium is itself “something\nto look at”—an object.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/11981\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eTransparent and Opaque\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e,\nBochner hired a professional photographer\nto produce images of petroleum jelly\nand shaving cream, differing substances\nthat might illustrate the terms of his title.\nHe stroked or squirted the materials\nonto glass plates and then had\nthem photographed under various\nbrightly colored lights, in some instances\nstaining the substances with red\niodine. The twelve prints confound the\nrelative transparency or opacity of\nthe materials—the semiclear petroleum\njelly, for example, casts shadows and\nreflections that impede its translucence—\nand suggest how these opposed\nqualities can be simultaneously present.\nThey also draw attention to the\ntransformative qualities of light and color,\npairing images of petroleum jelly lit\nwith pink-toned lights and shaving cream\nmixed with iodine to create a pink\nfroth. As a result, Bochner challenges\nthe traditional presumption that the\ncamera’s “transparent” system precisely\nmimics the world as seen by the\nhuman eye.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500032444","wikidata_id":"Q1485390","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:38:43.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-31T07:01:25.718-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/140/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/140/exhibitions"}}}}