Mel Bochner
Sixteen Isomorphs (Negative), 1967
Gelatin silver prints mounted on board
49.5 x 49.5 cm (19.5 x 19.5 in.) each panel; 226.1 x 355.6 cm (89 x 140 in.), installed

Since the 1960s, pioneering Conceptual artist Mel Bochner has produced a diverse and compelling body of work preoccupied with the gap between an idea and its material manifestation. By 1967 he had turned to photography to record time-based conceptual processes. In this work, the artist photographed rows of cubes from an angle and made negative prints. Bochner then cut them into quadrants and installed them in a random order. The term isomorph in the title refers to the equal areas of black and white in each image and in the composition as a whole. The final grouping of 16 Isomorphs (Negative) shows how Bochner could transform a single photograph of building blocks into a galaxy of nonexistent spaces.