Measurement

Measurement: 24' marked the 50th anniversary of the Mel Bochner's first Measurement Room from 1969. Recognized as one of the leading figures in the development of Conceptual Art in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, Bochner pioneered the play between the characteristics of numerical values, space, and language in his work. This work was first shown at the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair in Fall 2019, on the eve of a newly commissioned large-scale Measurement Room exhibition at Dia:Beacon.

In May 1969, Bochner realized the first works in his ongoing Measurement series, using black tape to draw simple, linear segments across the surfaces of Heiner Friedrich’s Munich gallery. Punctuating these lines were numbers that corresponded to the length of the measured surface: the width of a window bay, the height of a doorframe, and so on. Several of the measurements were further subdivided, indicated by notched marks interspersed at intervals across a wall. In this work, as in subsequent iterations of the series, Bochner used lines to wrap around the architectural envelope of the gallery space in a systematic evaluation of its spatial parameters and the perceptual experience that unfolds within it.

At the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair in 2019, Bochner installed the measurement piece on a 24-foot project wall. The work is comprised of a group of silkscreens, lined up seamlessly at different heights along the wall. Running through the silkscreens is a white line with the length of the wall indicated in the center. The white line is intended to be hung at 72 inches, the artist's eye level.