Mel Bochner · the limits of drawing Mel Bochner - Measurement 1 to 12 - 1994 From April 23 to August 22, 2022, the Art Institute of Chicago presents "Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective," focusing on the drawings of one of the most important representatives of conceptual art in the United States. Source: Art Institute of Chicago · Image: Mel Bochner, "Measurement: 1" to 12" (Color)," 1994. Collection of Wendy Evans Joseph. Image © Mel Bochner. Photo by Nicholas Knight Studio, New York. Courtesy of Peter Freeman, Inc. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 1962, Mel Bochner (Pittsburgh, 1940) became one of the most important representatives of the American conceptual art during the 1960s, and his exhibition “Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant To Be Viewed as Art” is considered one of the key moments in the development of conceptual art. Although Bochner has worked in a variety of media (painting, sculpture, books), the retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago is the first to focus on his drawings, and includes some 90 works that span the artist's entire career, many of which -as curator Kevin Salatino explains- come from the artist's personal collection. In a press release, the museum explains that "spanning traditional techniques on paper in ink, pencil, and charcoal; oil paint on newspaper; wall drawings in powder pigment; and even stones arranged on the floor, Bochner’s pioneering works helped to redefine traditional boundaries of drawing. Often subversive and imbued with the artist’s signature sense of humor, they coax the viewer into comprehending what they mean." "In challenging any rigid definition of drawing, Bochner and his work have insistently asked the question, ‘What isn’t a drawing?’" the press release continues, adding that the exhibition "celebrates this question as it explores Bochner’s central themes of language, numbers, measurement, shape, and visual perception, illuminating his evolving ideas about seriality, temporality, and the slippage between word and image."

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