Mel Bochner
American, 1940-2025
Sixteen Isomorphs (Negative)
INV-1116
Mel Bochner
American, 1940-20251967
Sixteen Isomorphs (Negative)
Mel Bochner American, 1940-2025 →gelatin silver (developing-out-paper) prphotographic process
Date
1967
Medium
Gelatin silver prints mounted on board
Dimensions
49.5 × 49.5 cm (19 5/8 × 19 9/16 in.); Installed: 226.1 × 355.6 cm (89 1/16 × 140 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mary and Leigh Block; purchased with funds provided by Focus/Infinity, Mr. and Mrs. H. George Mann, and David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg; Photography Associates Fund
Since the 1960s, pioneering Conceptual artist Mel Bochner has produced a diverse and compelling body of work preoccupied with the gap between an idea and its material manifestation. By 1967 he had turned to photography to record time-based conceptual processes. In this work, the artist photographed rows of cubes from an angle and made negative prints. Bochner then cut them into quadrants and installed them in a random order. The term isomorph in the title refers to the equal areas of black and white in each image and in the composition as a whole. The final grouping of 16 Isomorphs (Negative) shows how Bochner could transform a single photograph of building blocks into a galaxy of nonexistent spaces.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
