Mel Bochner

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg acts as a collective portrait of creators linked only by their stated intention of expressing ideas through art. Unconnected to traditional concepts of beauty, storytelling or pictorial representation, the artists discuss the context of their art and how their work and the public's perception of it have changed over time. This film offers the rare opportunity to see a large body of work in their studios.—Michael Blackwood Productions

Filmed at the Yale University Art Gallery, "Mel Bochner: Thoughts Made Visible", approaches a major retrospective exhibition of the artist's early work while providing an opportunity to experience his notable, site-specific installations. Known for his use of common material, Bochner's elements are easily understandable yet his art is founded on the unexpected questioning of how simple things hold the ability to reveal eye-opening complexities. A relationship established through language, Bochner's work takes the form of a dialogue between practice and theory, defining his subject as "the contradiction between physical space and mental space." Bochner uses that contradiction to create visual think pieces, locating his own intention- and thus emotion- through his process, his sites, and the mind of his viewer.