There’s no such thing as innocent language, as we’ve learned over the last 75 years, 100 years. That has been made perfectly clear by the present political situation. Every abuse of power begins with the abuse of language. So we have to hold language to a certain skeptical standard. What does this mean? What is this saying? What is it hiding? - Mel Bochner
Mel Bochner works with color, texture and, of course, words. Many of his creations are full of humor and irony often with a sense of satire.
Last year, Bochner had an exhibit called Do I Have to Draw You a Picture? at the Selwyn Gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills. As part of the exhibit Bochner placed a lighted Variable Message Sign outside the gallery; the kind of sign that tells drivers about upcoming road work, speed limits and other potential risks. He set the sign up so that it displayed a variety of changing messages like Nothing Ever Changes, Blah, Blah, Blah, Ha Ha Ha, It Could Be Worse and Talk is Cheap. People driving and walking by the sign tried to turn it off, believing that the sign was sabotaged and that the city would want it off; others stopped to take selfies.
For a show in Brussels, where the population speaks both French and Dutch, Bochner created works using both languages.
“I would like my work not to be monovocal—to have many voices, to evoke many responses.” he said in a 2020 interview, “But I think it can take on different meanings to what I thought it meant when I made it. In other words, a new context changes the meaning. Humor is a weapon. It’s a way of engaging and holding a viewer. It’s not the same as making a joke, but a sense of irony, a meaning inside the meaning.”
In 1966, Bochner helped the advance of conceptual art with a show at the School of Visual Arts in New York. For the show, called Working Drawings And Other Visible Things On Paper Not Necessarily Meant To Be Viewed As Art, Bochner collected working drawings and paper ephemera from friends. He didn’t have enough money to put them into frame for display, so he made copies, placed them into four black binders, and put each binder on a pedestal. That exhibit turned out to be just the start of Bochner’s fifty-plus year very successful career.
Mel Bochner, at age 83, still paints, draws and lives and works in New York.
References:
Kevin Salatino and Emily Ziemba. “A Way to See What I’m Thinking”: A Conversation with Mel Bochner. Art Institute of Chicago/Inside the Exhibition. April 20, 2022.
Hannah Ongley. Artist Mel Bochner obscures words to reveal their dangerous potential. Document Journal/Above the Fold. May 29, 2020.
Phong Bui. Mel Bochner with Phong Bui. The Brooklyn Rail. Art/In Conversation. May 2006.
