Mel Bochner Are You Out Of Your Fucking Mind? For Sale

Edition

Edition of 12

Much of Bochner’s work explores the nature of language and the ways in which it evolves. For works like “Amazing”, Bochner uses the thesaurus to create word lists, rearranging and adding or removing synonyms for sound and composition so as to create not a thesaurus entry but a narrative of ever-changing meaning. Key phrases from his “Exasperations” series examine direct, aggressive language as an expression of irritation, annoyance, vexation and ill-humor at the state of the world, all the while leaving the definitive meaning open-ended. “If The Color Changes” presents a perplexing quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein about the nature of color and uses its English translation to visually obscure and further confuse the text. In etching these texts into mirrored glass, Bochner speaks to the nature of vanity and self-reflection in their various meanings and contradictions. The Latin noun ‘vanitas’ is related to the Hebrew word ‘hevel’, a word whose definition includes the concept of transitoriness. Both the text and the materials featured in this series comment on the evolution of language and offer a meditation on the revealing nature of self-reflection.