Mel Bochner (American, b. 1940)
Blah, Blah, Blah (MB7432- 2024)
Signed and dated recto in graphite
Monoprint in oil with collage, engraving and embossment on handmade paper
Paper Dimensions: 23 x 30 3/4 inches (58.4 x 78.1 cm)
PRICE: SOLD
In life, we often hear the mundane droning of everyday life, “Blah Blah Blah” muttered in the background of our lives like the parents in a “Peanuts” cartoon. It is just this monotony that Conceptual Artist Mel Bochner uses and transforms into something dynamic, requiring immediate notice. Bochner overlaps bold primary tones, and secondary hues to create a playful yet confrontational dialogue about the redundancy of language and the noise of modern communication. We are honored that this work found its forever home in record time—under one hour! Clearly, its irreverent wit and dazzling complexity were impossible to resist.
The artist is a printmaker, but he creates UNIQUE prints… Dubbed MONOPRINTS. He used oil paint, as well as other inks, dyes and embossed imagery to create one-of-a-kind compositions. These have the impasto and relief we are used to seeing in traditional oil paintings because he created a new technique which echoes these features. The phrase “blah, blah, blah,” which Bochner himself has described as “a stand-in for everything we don’t want to hear.” The text, written in bold, painterly strokes, resonates with both humor and criticism, pointing to the oversaturation of meaningless language in contemporary discourse.
