Documenting arch-conceptualist Mel Bochner's fusion of architecture
and quantification
Produced in honor of the 50th anniversary of his first Measurement
Room, Mel Bochner: Measurements (1968-1971) revisits this defining
period early in the New York-based artist's renowned career. One of the
most important conceptual artists of the 1960s and 1970s, Bochner (born
1940) applied various abstract systems in his artistic practice. Here,
measurements--a numerical means of ordering the world--highlight the
interplay of architecture and the viewer's relationship to it.
Subverting a simple yet meticulous procedure by rendering it as
aesthetics, the work challenges conventional understandings of
dimensions in space and by consequence one's place in the world. Here,
preparatory drawings, poetic artist's notes and archival photographs of
the first Measurement Rooms reveal Bochner's thinking and process
beyond this pivotal series while a contemporaneous interview with Elayne
Varian and an essay by Dia curator Alexis Lowry add essential context.