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Series Title: Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography)

Untitled

1970

Mel Bochner

(American, 1940–2025)
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Culture
America
Medium
offset lithograph
Measurements
Sheet: 12.7 x 20.3 cm (5 x 8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Barbara Tannenbaum in memory of Carl Schneider 2023.132.10
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Mel Bochner has stated that the quotations in Misunderstandings “might (or might not) suggest the impossibility of a ‘theory’ of photography.”

Description

When Mel Bochner began producing photographs, he explored historical and critical writings on medium and found that “the more I read, the more I began to see it all as a colossal misunderstanding.” This artwork juxtaposes quotations from his reading that present contradictory views of the medium and its relationship to reality and reproduction with a photograph: a negative of the artist’s forearm and hand alongside a measuring stick (a symbol of verifiable fact).
A vertically oriented black-and-white print depicts a light-skinned person's arm, bent at the elbow, extending upward. The back of the hand faces us with fingers slightly spread. Fine hairs texture the skin, and a striped sleeve is visible at the lower left. To the right, a vertical line marks twelve inches. The high-contrast subject is set against a dark, clinical background, framed within a stark white border.

Untitled

1970

Mel Bochner

(American, 1940–2025)
America

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