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Mel Bochner

SELECTED WORKS
Blah, Blah, Blah (Inverse)
2022
Silkscreen on Lanaquarelle paper

Edition of 30
Image/paper size: 62 x 47 inches (157.5 x 119.4 cm)
Frame size: 65 1/8 x 49 3/4 inches (165.4 x 126.4 cm)
Signed, dated, and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #33720)
Krakow Witkin 2022.02

Crazy
2022
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment on handmade paper

Image/paper size: 30 x 22 1/4 inches (76.2 x 56.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower right in graphite
(Inventory #34946)

Don’t Make Me Laugh / 60″ / What’s The Big Idea?
2022
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment on handmade paper

Image/paper size: 60 x 60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower right in graphite
(Inventory #34407)

Amazing
2019-
2022
Etching in 18 colors on Arches en-tou-cas paper with hand torn edges

Edition of 30
Image size: 30 1/2 x 22 3/8 inches (77.5 x 56.8 cm)
Paper size: 36 x 27 1/2 inches (91.4 x 69.9 cm)
Signed, dated, and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #35211)

Language Is Not Transparent
2017
Silkscreen and water-based inks in three parts

Edition of 20
Overall size: 63 x 141 inches overall (160 x 358.1 cm overall)
Image/paper size: 63 x 47 inches each (160 x 119.4 cm each)
Signed, numbered and dated on reverse on third sheet
(Inventory #34025)
Krakow Witkin 2017.01

Obscene
2017
Silkscreen in eight colors

Edition of 30
Image/paper size: 61 3/4 x 46 1/2 inches (156.8 x 118.1 cm)
Signed, dated, and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #31573)
Krakow Witkin 2017.02

Nameless
2015
Monoprint with collage, engraving and embossment on hand-dyed Twinrocker handmade paper

Image/paper size:  36 x 63 1/8 inches  (91.4 x 160.3 cm)
Frame size:  40 5/8 x 67 3/4 inches  (103.2 x 172.1 cm)
Signed and dated upper right corner
(Inventory #34405)

Enough Said
2014
Etching with aquatint on Somerset White Velvet paper

Image/paper size: 22 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches (56.5 x 76.8 cm)
Edition of 20
Signed, dated, and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #33627)
Krakow Witkin 2014.05

I Forget
2014
Etching with aquatint on Somerset Velvet White paper

Edition of 20
Image/paper size: 10 1/2 x 20 inches (26.7 x 50.8 cm)
Signed, numbered, and dated lower right in graphite
(Inventory #33630)
Krakow Witkin 2014.07

Joys of Yiddish
2014
Screenprint on felt

Image/mount size:  62 3/4 x 52 3/4 inches  (159.4 x 134 cm)
Edition of 30
Signed on verso
(Inventory #34114)
Krakow Witkin 2014.02

Silence
2013
Nineteen-color water-based silkscreen with color shifting inks on Lanaquarelle paper

Edition of 20
Image/paper size: 60 x 45 inches (152.4 x 114.3 cm)
Signed, dated and numbered lower right in graphite
(Inventory #33778)
Krakow Witkin 2013.05

Go Away
2009
Two-color etching with aquatint on Somerset Velvet White paper

Edition of 20
Image/paper size: 21 1/2 x 16 3/4 inches (54.6 x 42.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower right and numbered lower center in graphite
(Inventory #31560)

Liar
2008
Etching with aquatint with black ink on Japanese surface Gampi paper

Edition of 20
Image/paper size: 30 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches (77.5 x 57.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower right, numbered lower center in graphite
(Inventory #32940)
Krakow Witkin 2008.02

If The Color Changes
2003
Monoprint in oil with engraving and embossment on handmade paper

Image/paper size: 2 1/4 x 3 inches (5.7 x 7.6 cm)
Frame size: 11 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches (29.2 x 36.8 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right in graphite
(Inventory #33471)

If The Color Changes
2003
Monoprint in oil with engraving and embossment on handmade paper

Image/paper size: 2 1/4 x 3 inches (5.7 x 7.6 cm)
Frame size: 11 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches (29.2 x 36.8 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right in graphite
(Inventory #33484)

12 inches
2007
Unique monoprint with engraving and embossment on handmade paper in two parts

Image/paper size:  9 x 12 inches  (24.1 x 31.1 cm)
Signed and dated on reverse in graphite
(Inventory #26362)

PRIMER (1969-1972) Twenty-One Demonstrations from a Theory of Sculpture
1995
Set of twenty-one silkscreens

Image paper size:  9 7/8 x 6 15/16 inches each  (25.1 x 17.6 cm each)
Edition of 50
Signed, numbered and dated lower right on colophon
(Inventory #27480)
Krakow Witkin 1995.07

Genetic Sequence B
1996
Monoprint with engraving and embossment on handmade Twinrocker paper

Image/paper size:  36 x 72 inches (91.4 x 183 cm)
Signed and dated verso
(Inventory #14649)

Untitled (Red, Yellow, Black)
1995
Engraving with embossment on 4 sheets of handmade Twinrocker paper

Image/paper: 20 x 20 inches overall  (50.8 x 50.8 cm)
Edition of 8
(Inventory #19199)
Krakow Witkin 1995.06

Third Quartet
1988
Black and white aquatint and soft ground etching in four parts on d'Arches Watercolor rough paper

Overall size:  45 x 44 3/4 inches  (114.3 x 113.7 cm)
Bottom left vertical size:  19 7/8 x 14 3/4 inches  (50.5 x 37.5 cm)
Right bottom facing horizontal size:  14 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches  (37.5 x 50.2 cm)
Upper right facing vertical size:  20 x 14 7/8 inches  (50.8 x 37.8 cm)
Upper left facing horizontal size:  14 3/4 x 19 7/8 inches  (37.5 x 50.5 cm)
Edition of 15
Signed, titled and numbered on reverse of bottom vertical sheet in graphite.  Each sheet is titled and numbered on reverse with directions as to orientation.
(Inventory #29365)
Krakow Witkin 1988.03

Additional Information

Mel Bochner is recognized as one of the leading figures in the development of Conceptual art in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Emerging at a time when painting was increasingly discussed as outmoded, Bochner became part of a new generation of artists which also included Eva Hesse, Donald Judd, and Robert Smithson – artists who, like Bochner, were looking at ways of breaking with Abstract Expressionism and traditional compositional devices. His pioneering introduction of the use of language in the visual, led Harvard University art historian Benjamin Buchloh to describe his 1966 Working Drawings as probably the first truly conceptual exhibition.’

Bochner came of age during the second half of the 1960s, a moment of radical change both in society at large as well as in art. While painting slowly lost its preeminent position in modern art, language moved from talking about art to becoming part of art itself. Bochner has consistently probed the conventions of both painting and of language, the way we construct and understand them, and the way they relate to one another to make us more attentive to the unspoken codes that underpin our engagement with the world.

– Mel Bochner: If The Color Changes

Mel Bochner studied at Carnegie Institute of Technology where he received his B.F.A. in 1962. Since 1964 he has lived and worked in New York City. He has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and his work is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.

In 2005 he received an honorary doctor of fine arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Mel Bochner has also taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was appointed to the Yale faculty in 1979 as senior critic in painting/printmaking and in 2001 was appointed professor (adjunct).

Born in Pittsburgh (USA) in 1940

BFA in 1962 from Carnegie Institute of Technology