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"8" Branch from Counting Alternative Series (The Wittgenstein Illustrations)

"8" Branch from Counting Alternative Series (The Wittgenstein Illustrations)

Mel Bochner
American, 1940–2025
(1971)
A drawing in felt-tip pen, colored pencil, ink, and pencil on paper in which Mel Bochner arranges the numbers 0–99 into an X/“8”-like branching diagram to make the act of counting and rule-following visually explicit.
Neat, hand-lettered numerals crawl along four diagonal arms that meet at a central knot, set against faint crosshair lines and a pale wash so the page reads like a sparse, rhythmic map of a counting process.
By turning a basic logical operation into a visible system, the work links conceptual art to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s questions about certainty and rules, helping open up art that makes language, procedure, and notation itself the subject.
Medium
Felt-tip pen, colored pencil, ink, and pencil on paper
Dimensions
22 3/8 x 30" (56.8 x 76.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Acquired with matching funds from Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller and the National Endowment for the Arts
Accession
592.1973
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
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