A white wall with a grid drawn on it. There are 16 staggered black squares throughout the grid. Some squares have fragments of slanted red,white, and blue grids.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A white wall with a graphite grid drawn on it. There are 16 staggered black squares throughout the grid. Some squares have fragments of slanted red,white, and blue grids. The bottom pieces have larger, red and white grid fragments. The top pieces have smaller, blue grid fragments.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2006.9.1-16
People
Mel Bochner, American (Pittsburgh, PA 1940 - 2025)
Title
Dispersed Perspective (One-Point) R.W.B.
Classification
Photographs
Work Type
photograph
Date
1967?
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/312562

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Spray lacquer on gelatin silver print cut into 16 parts and mounted on Masonite, and graphite on wall
Technique
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 80 x 80 in. (203.2 x 203.2 cm)
each panel: 10 x 10 in. (25.4 x 25.4 cm)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Mel Bochner, New York, New York, sold; to Harvard University Art Museums, 2006.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Purchase through the generosity of Martin and Deborah Hale, Carol and Sol Lewitt, Markus Michalke, Gabriella De Ferrari, Arthur M. Cohen, Kenneth L. Freed, Nancy B. Tieken, and the Richard Norton Memorial Fund in honor of Linda Norden
Copyright
© Mel Bochner
Accession Year
2006
Object Number
2006.9.1-16
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Dispersed Perspective (One Point): R. W. B. is a striking, multi-part wall work that comprises mounted, colored photographs picturing portions of a perspectival grid, placed within another, non-perspectival grid, drawn in pencil on the wall. The work culminates a series of constructed photographic works that Bochner made in 1967 as part of an investigation described as "demonstrating by proxy the disparity... between the idealized Renaissance 'construction' of perspective and the 'reality' of how we see it."

Publication History

  • Scott Rothkopf, Mel Bochner photographs, 1966-1969, Harvard University Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2002), Fig 16

Exhibition History

  • Nominally Figured: Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/08/2006 - 02/25/2007
  • 32Q: 1100 60’s Experiment, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/13/2016 - 04/07/2017

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu