MEL BOCHNER: DRAWING FROM FOUR DECADES AT WEATHERSPOON

Friday, 06 October 2006 09:32

Greensboro, NC — The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, presents Mel Bochner: Drawing From Four Decades, the first exhibition to offer an overview of the artist’s drawing practice.  That drawing was at the center of Bochner’s art at the start of his career has been acknowledged by several exhibitions highlighting works on paper created between 1966 and 1973.  Less well known, however, is that drawing has remained key to Bochner’s art over subsequent decades, during which he both expanded upon his early work and extended his conceptual, visual, and emotional reach.  The exhibition includes approximately thirty works that suggest the density of Bochner’s approach and the role drawing has played both in the creation of unique works and as a methodology essential to installation, painting, and sculpture. On exhibit October 15 – December 23, 2006.

Bochner’s commitment to certain theoretical markers will be seen in a broader visual context than previously, conveying the impressive range of the artist’s drawings over the course of his career.  The distinct power of graphite, ink, and color pencil drawings from the late sixties and early seventies, which are generally small in size, is here placed in the context of the visually impressive large scale works that followed, drawn in charcoal and pastel, and casein, acrylic, and oil paints, thereby revealing the power of Bochner’s extended practice.  In this way the depth of the artist’s intellectual rigor may be considered within the breadth of a career that has evolved and become visually richer and more provocative over the course of four decades.

Mel Bochner: Drawing From Four Decades is organized by Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art at the National Gallery of Art, working closely with the artist.  Accompanying the show will be a fully illustrated catalogue with an introductory essay by Fine and a chronology of exhibitions specific to Bochner’s drawings.  The exhibition was assembled from the private collections of the artist and of noted drawing collectors, Wynn and Sarah-Ann Kramarsky.  It originated at Mr. Kramarsky’s former SoHo street space where for years he rotated a selection from his collection of some 1,700 works on paper.

Mel Bochner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1940.  He lives and works in New York City. Bochner has had a number of one-person, drawings only exhibitions between 1966 and 2006, including: the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in 2004; the Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston and Sonnabend Gallery, New York in 2003; the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA in 2002; Grant Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills, CA, Galleria Primo Piano, Rome and the Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York in 2001; Grant Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills, CA and F.R.A.C. Bourgogne, Dijon France in 2000; the Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York and The Drawing Center, New York in 1998; the Cabinet des Estampes du Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland and the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland in 1997; the Sonnabend Gallery, New York, La Societe des Exposition du Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels , and many other exhibitions.

The Weatherspoon Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has one of the foremost collections of modern and contemporary art in the Southeast.  Through a dynamic annual calendar of exhibitions and educational programs, the Weatherspoon provides an opportunity for audiences to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time as it enriches the life of our university and community.  Visit our website at: http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu