Mel Bochner and Damien Hirst Go Back to Basics

If you write something, the words aren’t yours, but the thoughts are yours. That opened my eyes to what felt like a different way to think about things.
– Mel Bochner

Mel Bochner (b.1940) is a conceptual artist. He asks the viewers of his works to contemplate the essence and function of art.

 

In the 1960s, Bochner created a work with just brown paper, tape and vinyl numbers. Part of his Measurement Series, Bochner taped 48” x 36” rectangles of brown paper on the gallery’s walls and showed the measurements in black vinyl numbers. Not the usual framed drawings and paintings on the gallery walls; the gallery itself became the work of art.

 

 

“I think if your work is not misunderstood in some way, then it’s not very good.” Bochner said in a recent interview in The Brooklyn Rail.  “The work must have more than one interpretation, right? If misunderstanding stops being possible, then how can the artwork be engaging? I am very much in favor of ambiguity.

 

Mel Bochner: 48” Standards, a recreation of the original work, that was shown at a New York gallery in 1969, will be on exhibit at the Peter Freeman Gallery in NewYork from November 19, 2024 through January 11, 2025.

 

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I want to make art, create objects that have meaning forever. It’s a big ambition, universal truth, but somebody’s got to do it.
- Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst (b.1965) has been considered the ‘bad boy’ of the art world. His early works, like the shark floating in formaldehyde, garnered a lot of praise, a lot of criticism and a lot of attention.

 

Hirst is a key figure in, not just the British art world, but around the world. Much of his early works were focused on death. “The difference between art about death and actual death,” Hirst said, “is that one’s a celebration and the other’s a dull fact.”

 

 

Hirst  recently switched gears from the very controversial to the more traditional. He created three series of seascapes that became the basis for the H13 series of fine art Giclee prints, available at VFA. .

 

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In case you haven’t heard, a version of the controversial banana duct-taped to a wall, will be auctioned on November 20th at Sotheby’s Now and Contemporary Evening Auction in New York.

 

 

Titled Comedian, created by artist Maurizio Cattelan, the banana debuted at Art Basel in Miami in 2019. The current version of the banana will go on a world tour to London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Taipei, Tokyo, and Los Angeles before returning to New York for the auction.

 

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Yes, we have no bananas, but please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Mel Bochner and Damien Hirst available at VFA.

 

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November 8, 2024