"Visiting Artist Day: examining different fine art practices"

Nathan Eastwood MA UAL

Title: Craft + Conceptualism = Fine Art Practitioner


Mel Bochner & Gerhard Merz

Mel Bochner (born 1940) is an American conceptual artist. Bochner received his BFA in 1962 and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 2005 from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives in New York City.
A member of the first generation of Conceptual artists, with his sculpture, drawing and photography he explored the opacity of language and questioned the authority of knowledge over perception.

The artist in conversation with Elayne Varien talks about his measurement works. One of his notions I find very profound is when he says that “It seems to me that our perception of things is determined by the ideas that we have about them. It’s a case of a certain mental space that one has for both seeing and thinking. We like to feel that they are separate, but they are not – they overlap. They overlap in our conception of things, and consequently, our experience of them.”

MB: goes on to say that he is talking about the ‘human activity and art as an activity of the mind.’ MB: thinks that art is a way of thinking about things. ‘By superimposing the measurements of a thing on the thing itself, I incorporate it into my art.’

MB: is simply making work which questions these systems through the material properties of art. Conceptually I find this fascinating. Is it that he is questioning art or measurements? Maybe both all as one project? I consider this art questioning itself, or should I say through the materials of art, questioning the use of measuring and its relationship to the gallery - is very similar to that of Kant who according to Clement Greenberg’s seminal essay ‘Modernist Painting’ Greenberg says that “Western civilization is not the first to turn around and question its own foundations, but it is the civilization that has gone the furthest in doing so........Kant...was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first Modernist. The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself – not in order to subvert it, but to entrench it,” etc....

Gerhard Merz

During his studies at the Munich Academy of Art from 1969 to 1973, Merz began to tackle suprematist and constructivist positions with his metal sculptures and monochrome works. Moreover, his works should be considered with regard to the conceptual tendencies of the 1970s and 80s. From 1984 Merz created local paintings, for which he designed the exhibition room walls with monochrome mineral colours. In 1986 installations Merz united aspects of writing, colour, and architecture and in this manner reflected history of art and the forms of presentation in the art business.

Since the late 60s, Gerhard Merz has been developing a concept of painting that is strongly influenced by Formalism and architectural Modernism--a concept he refers to as "archi-painting." In this most recent exhibition catalogue, Merz employs the notion of emptiness to evolve into experiential reflection, as his allusive paintings and architecture are augmented by fragments of text.


My Masters

Key notions which interest me:

Perception
Measurements
Site specific/site responsive


1st element is the craft, the understanding of materials, process, and using these tools to make a final aesthetic;
and

2nd the conceptual part to the practice, for me this is the philosophical/idea informing element