For the solipsist reality is not enough. He denies the existence of anything outside the self-enclosed confines of his own mind. (Sartre refers to solipsism as “the reef,” for it “amounts to saying that outside me nothing exists.” Schopenhauer speaks of the solipsist as “a madman shut up in an impregnable blockhouse.”) Viewed within the boundaries of thought, the random dimensions of reality lose their qualities of extension. They become flat and static. Serial art in its highly abstract and ordered manipulation of thoughts is likewise self-contained and nonreferential.

Some may say, and justifiably, that there is a poetry or power or some other quality to this work that an approach like the above misses. But aspects like those exist for individuals and are difficult to communicate using conventional meanings for words. Others may claim that given this they are still bored. If this is the case, their boredom may be the product of being forced to view things not as sacred but as they probably are–autonomous and indifferent.

Serial Art, Systems, Solipsism. Mel Bochner 1967.