Mel Bochner
I Forget What I Forgot, 2022
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment
30 x 30 inches
Blah, Blah, Blah / 60" / Blah, Blah, Blah, 2022
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment
60 x 60 inches
What Were You Thinking? / Are You Out Of Your Fucking Mind? / Do I Have To Draw You A Picture?, 2021
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment
60 x 60 inches
Blah, 30", Blah, 2022
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment
30 x 30 inches
In One Eye Out The Other, 2018
Monoprint with engraving and embossment
12 x 36 1/4 inches
Just Saying / Everybody Is Full Of Shit / ... , 2022
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment
30 1/4 x 30 inches
Notes on “Exasperations”
Exasperate, irritate, frustrate, infuriate, irk, vex, piss off…from the Latin exasperatus – “to roughen.”
These works grapple with the politics of language, the camouflage of hidden motives and
unspoken agendas. In the half-light of “alternative facts”, they question the never ending
contingency of truth and falsehood.
They exist in the oblivion of the present: I FORGET WHAT I FORGOT.
In the endless echo inside the bubble: BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.
In the constant insults to reason and logic: IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING.
In the disgust with half truths and outright lies: I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE.
In the inauthenticity across the entire political spectrum: LOOK WHO’S TALKING.
And in the contempt with it all: DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH.
However, ambiguity immediately plagues any effort to say what one means and mean only what one says.
This is where printmaking asserts its unique ability to materially embody contradictory ideas.
Words smeared, smudged, obscured. Double takes, repetitions, reversals, self-mockery... the textual disintegrating into a cacophony of voices.
Yes, but are they funny?
DO I HAVE TO PAINT YOU A PICTURE?