Mel Bochner, Ludwig Wittgenstein

Majestic Arion Press's limited edition of Wittgenstein’s last work, illuminated with twelve prints by Mel Bochner.

• Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian).
• Prints by Mel Bochner (American).
• San Francisco: The Arion Press, 1991.
• Limited edition of 300 copies.
• Publisher’s prospectus laid in.
• Bound in original grey cloth over boards with pale blue-grey cloth insets on spine and covers, with titling in red and black, pictorial endpapers.
• Housed in original gray cloth slipcase.

Bilingual edition of Wittgenstein’s last writings, on the intricate difficulty of knowing that one knows things. Compiled and published posthumously, in the original German with facing text in the standard English translation of Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe. Bochner’s twelve planographic prints build on his earlier “Wittgenstein Illustrations,” a series of drawings begun in 1971 and revisited for this project, mirroring “the constant circling and doubling-back of Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy.” A stunning copy of this beautiful edition.

“In a volume of excerpts from his ongoing thoughts on art, Mel Bochner wrote, “I do not make art. I do art”. This sounds almost as if an echo of Wittgenstein’s “Philosophy is not a theory but an activity”, as if Wittgenstein’s philosophy and Bochner’s art moved on parallel tracks and consisted in process and activities, rather than products, viz. theories and artworks."

Thomas Wartenberg, Mel Bochner: Illustrating Philosophy.