Mel Bochner: If the Colour Changes

by Mel Bochner (artist)

Published in conjunction with a major retrospective, this monograph takes colour as its guiding thread to highlight Mel Bochner’s rich and thought-provoking approach to photography, installation and painting.

One of the founding figures of Conceptual art, and one of its most astute critics, Mel Bochner combines colour and language in his work.

This monograph focuses on the role of colour, the purity of thought and visual pleasure in Bochner’s most recent work – such as his series of paintings in which he used a thesaurus to generate humorous word chains – in relation to the artist's famous works from the 1960s and 1970s.

Alongside over 140 colour illustrations, Achim Borchardt-Hume discusses the role of colour in Bochner’s latest work; Ulrich Wilmes looks at new paintings in relation to past work; João Fernandes explores language; and Briony Fer considers notions of corruption in Bochner’s art.

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Mel Bochner was an American conceptual artist. Bochner received his BFA in 1962 and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 2005 from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.