What isn't a drawing?

Mel Bochner (*1940 in Pittsburgh), known as a conceptual artist, has created many drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, books and installations in a career that has now spanned six decades. The Art Institute in Chicago is now dedicating a retrospective to him that focuses exclusively on his drawings. The museum is thus taking on a pioneering role, as it is showing the first solo exhibition with this focus.

The exhibition Mel Bochner Drawings: A Retrospective highlights the importance of the medium to the artist's practice from his beginnings in the 1960s to the present day. Bochner's pioneering work in redefining traditional boundaries of drawing plays as much a role as his ideas of seriality, temporality and the fluid transition between word and image. 90 works from all phases of his oeuvre will thread their way through the Art Institute's exhibition spaces from 23 April; including those from his extremely significant early period. They explore Bochner's essential themes of language, numbers, measurements, forms and visual perception and let traditional techniques (ink, pencil, pastel, chalk, charcoal) collide with experimental materials such as burnt matches on paper or oil paint on newsprint. He himself sees materiality as a central means for the meaning of a drawing and thus explores the question »What isn't a drawing?«, which is also the focus of the retrospective. It runs until 22 August.