This Measurement Perimeter has been conceived by Mel Bochner in 1968 and produced in 2017 by mfc-michèle didier at the occasion of the exhibition Singer Notes that takes place from September 7 to November 10, 2017 at mfc-michèle didier gallery in Paris.

Measurement Perimeter is a major work that can be seen as the culmination of the experiments and research undertaken by Mel Bochner at Singer Labs.

In 1968, Bochner replied to an open call organised by the already renowned Experiments in Art and Technology program. (Robert Rauschenberg and Billy Klüver initiated E.A.T. in 1966, when scientific optimism within American culture was at its climax.) Bochner was selected to partake in a residency at the Singer Laboratories in New Jersey. Between September and December 1968, he was to visit the labs three times a week. The Singer Notes are made up of notes and drawings which resulted from the conversations he held with scientists and engineers there.

This drawing in the last pages of the Singer Notes must be considered the first draft and the primordial idea from which Bochner conceived the Measurement series.

About the page of the Singer Notes, starting point of the exhibition

In 2015 Michèle Didier proposed to Mel Bochner to publish the entirity of the Singer Notes and to organize an exhibition in her gallery in Paris, taking one of the last drawing of the Singer Notes as its starting point.

Mel Bochner enthusiastically accepted the proposition made by Michèle Didier and realized a Measurement Perimeter specially for mfc-michèle didier gallery space.

In this Measurement Perimeter a black adhesive tape is placed at 1,80 m heigh all along the wall and the windows of the room. The heigh of the tape on the wall is the heigh of the eyes of Mel Bochner. The entire size of the room (in this case 20.5 m) is indicated on the wall in Letraset.