Solar System & Rest Rooms Writings and Interviews, 1965-2007

by Bochner, Mel; Bois, Yve-Alain

• ISBN13: 9780262026314
• ISBN10: 0262026317
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-09
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Artist Mel Bochner became a writer, he says, almost by accident. In 1965, as a young artist in New York, he was out of a job; Arts Magazinepaid him $2.50 for every review he turned in, whether they published it or not; a month of review-writing paid his rent-$28.00 a month. His reviews and articles provoked a range of unexpected reactions. "At that time, artists who wrote were looked at suspiciously, as if writing somehow tainted their visual practice," he writes. A painter friend attacked him publicly for "joining the enemy." Bochner soon began testing the boundary between writing-as-criticism and writing-as-visual-art. Solar System & Rest Roomscollects both Bochner's writings on art and his writings as art, offering more than fifty pieces-reviews, art criticism, theoretical texts, interviews, catalog statements, notecards, and his groundbreaking "magazine interventions"-many reproduced in facsimile. Bochner is a leading figure in conceptualism; his 1966 installation at the School of Visual Arts Gallery Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Artis considered to be the earliest exhibition of conceptual art. Solar System & Rest Roomschronologically documents the work and ideas of this important artist over a span of forty years, as well as providing a unique perspective on the conceptual and post-minimal art scene in New York. This book offers a rare insight into what it means to be an artist whose visual practice is inseparable from the sustained practice of writing.

Author Biography

Mel Bochner has lived and worked in New York City since 1964. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in major museum collections throughout the world.

Yve-Alain Bois studied at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes under the guidance of Roland Barthes and Hubert Damisch. A founder of the French journal Macula, Bois is currently a professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Arts Magazine Reviews	p. 1
Primary Structures	p. 8
Art in Process - Structures	p. 12
Systemic Painting	p. 14
Review: Eccentric Abstraction	p. 16
The Domain of the Great Bear	p. 18
Less Is Less (for Dan Flavin)	p. 26
The Beach Boys - '100%'	p. 31
New York Windows	p. 32
Review: New Dimensions	p. 34
Consumer Testing The Warren Report: Kennedy's Assassination as TV Serial	p. 35
Serial Art Systems: Solipsism	p. 37
The Serial Attitude	p. 42
Seriality and Photography	p. 48
A Compilation for Robert Mangold	p. 50
Alfaville, Godard's Apocalypse	p. 52
An Interview with Elayne Varian	p. 56
"Anyone Can Learn to Draw"	p. 61
Review: 1969 Whitney painting Annual	p. 62
Notecards	p. 64
No Thought Exists Without a Sustaining Support	p. 71
Excerpts from Speculation (1967-1970)	p. 72
Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography)	p. 76
Notes on Theory	p. 83
ICA Lecture	p. 90
Axiom of Exhaustion	p. 94
Three Statements for Data Magazine	p. 96
Reflections on 7 Properties of Between	p. 102
Book Review: Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972	p. 104
An Interview with Lisa Haller	p. 108
Ten to 10	p. 110
Mel Bochner on Malevich: An Interview with John Coplans	p. 112
Inside the Process: City University Lecture	p. 118
Matisse: the Risk of Painting	p. 123
Late Cezanne	p. 128
Drawing	p. 130
An Interview with Charles Stuckey	p. 132
Renoir	p. 138
Bannard: Painting as Becoming	p. 140
From Idea to Experience: An Interview with Frederic Valabreque	p. 141
Thoughts Reinstalling A Theory of Sculpture	p. 144
Barnett Newman: Writing Painting/Painting Writing	p. 146
About Eva Hesse: An Interview with Joan Simon	p. 150
Notes on Continuous/Dis/Continuous (1972)	p. 156
"How Can You Defend Making Paintings Now?": A Conversation with James Meyer	p. 158
An Interview with Lizbeth Marano	p. 168
Mondrian: "Always Farther"	p. 173
July 20, 1973	p. 175
Working Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed as Art	p. 176
Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography) (1967-1970)	p. 180
Blue Powder Pigment Wall Pieces	p. 182
An Interview with Christophe Cherix and Valerie Mavridorakis	p. 186
An Interview with Mark Godfrey	p. 191
Judd's Writings	p. 196
Secrets of the Domes	p. 199
Institute of Fine Art Lecture	p. 202
Illustration Credits	p. 209
Index	p. 211
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