Annotation: Recycled Ideas and Bottles

At February’s “The Medium Was Tedium” panel discussion at the New Museum (and later, in his contribution to issue 9), artist Mel Bochner discussed the role of form in conceptual art and his own use of text and language as media. He began with “The Domain of the Great Bear,” which he called “the first magazine-intervention piece,” then went on to describe his contribution to Aspen 5 + 6, Seven Translucent Tiers. Constructed of seven pieces of tracing paper and a seven-by-seven grid of words and symbols, the project replaced mass with language, a process Bochner likened to “searching for ‘a grin without a cat.’”

Artist and Triple Canopy editor Adam Helms adapted Bochner’s Seven Translucent Tiers for a special-edition Triple Canopy tote bag that debuted at last year’s NY Art Book Fair. One might see the use of recycled plastic bottles in the bag’s construction as a direct engagement with Bochner’s call for a “translucent” rather than “transparent” art. Following Bochner’s injunction against thinking of a work’s medium as a “neutral delivery system,” Helms’s design is altered as the bag is filled and unloaded, as it swings from one’s shoulder. And with the addition of Triple Canopy’s logo, Helms has dissolved the space between the tote bag and the Internet. (Nevertheless, you can purchase the tote bag on the Internet for $15.)