Bochner! The father of conceptual
art? We wondered as we walked in the
Whitechapel Gallery where we could distinguish through the doors of Gallery 1
Mel Bochner’s dominating painting Blah, Blah, Blah made just a year ago. how The artist used oil on velvet for this
centrepiece to the exhibition, which predisposed us for the excitement and the
conceptual intricacies involved. In this artistic encounter with the US
artist’s work we immediately understand the pivotal importance language and
colour has. Bohner uses various rationalising systems as that of measurements,
numbers and definitions, to express his understandings and findings of his
studies of our illogical and transitional human being.
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Mel Bochner
Master of the Universe, 2010
Oil and acrylic on canvas (2 panels)
Overall: 254 x 190.5 cm
Collection Anita & Burton Reiner, Washington DC
© Mel Bochner
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Bochner’s work is strongly rooted
to the artistic turbulence of the 60’s where modern art deprived paintings
their presupposed supremacy and where language becomes constituent to it. In
his own words:
‘What I wanted to understand was
the nature of the conventions. Conventions give us boundaries of experience. If
you examine the conventions you may find where the holes are, where a leakage
exists between ‘is’ and ‘is not’.’ [1]
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Mel Bochner
Blah, Blah, Blah, 2011
Oil on velvet (10 panels)
Overall: 284.5 x 533.4 cm
Courtesy Two Palms, New York
© Mel Bochner
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While walking up the stairs to
Gallery 9 we came across numerous 48-inch lines, in the art work 48” Descending
a Staircase (2012). We were perplexed by this almost Dadaist approach to systems of belief where
Bochner here as well as in various other works plays with the enigma of humanly
defined information which though factual are of no real aid in understanding the
world.
We were truly amazed by the
magnitute of Bochner’s work which so beautifully addresses modern social issues
where the ‘abuses of power begin with the abuse of language.’[2].
In a series of paintings Bochner writes on colour oozing canvases which were
our personal favourite. In Amazing! (2011) one reads a series of words all
acting as a thesaurus page of the title - awesome, groovy and gnarly -amongst
others.
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Mel Bochner
No Thought Exists Without A Sustaining Support, 1970
Acrylic and chalk on wall
182.9 x 121.9 cm
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, bequest of J.D.
Zellerbach, by exchange, 2009.84
© Mel Bochner
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We found ever so stunning the
sensory experience as well as the concepts, which Bochner draws upon through
this selection of his works, dating nearly 50 years back. The exhibition both
evokes thinking and mesmerises the viewer through Bochner’s abstractions where
the means through which those are expressed act as their tangible vessel but also
affect out perception of them. We surely felt privileged to catch this sought
after exhibition before it tours around Europe.
Until the 30th of December
This article was commissioned by Art Wednesday.
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