Mel Bochner is recognized as one of the founding figures of Conceptual Art in the New York of the 60s and 70s, a time when traditional painting was beginning to be questioned and considered something of the past. In this context, Bochner joined a generation of artists, including Eva Hesse, Donald Judd and Robert Smithson, who were looking for a way to dissmantle Abstract Expressionism and traditional compositional devices. Bochner pioneered the introduction of the use of written language in visual arts.

Bochner’s 1966 exhibition at the School of Visual Arts, “Working Drawings And Other Visible Things On Paper Not Necessarily Meant To Be Viewed As Art,” is often remembered as one of the most influential of the Conceptual Art movement, and was described by art historian and Harvard University professor Benjamin Buchloh as “probably the first truly conceptual exhibition.”

Bochner came of age during the second half of the 1960s, a time of radical change in society and in the art world. Bochner’s work consistently moves between two registers: painting and language. His works based on written language have been exhibited over the last few years in various solo exhibitions in different museums, including The Jewish Museum, New York, 2014; the Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2013; Contemporary Art Museum of Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 2013; The Whitechapel Gallery, London 2012; The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 2011; and The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2006.

Mel Bochner lives and works in New York City. His work includes painting, installations, video and public projects, has been exhibited in the main galleries and museums of Europe and the United States, and is part of the collections of outstanding museums of the world such as the MoMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, as well as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (deposit of the Sonnabend Collection).

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