Vulgar 2007

Mel Bochner made 'Vulgar' without specifying when, or how, but, from what I can see, it looks like oil paint with maybe some additives. Look at how the letters, like these little islands of meaning, are popping against this dark, abyss-like background. It’s like Bochner is digging into language, isn’t it? He's almost sculpting with paint, pushing and pulling the medium to give weight to each word. See the word ‘Crass,’ how the paint is built up, thick and almost crusty? It's visceral, you can almost feel the texture. This materiality, the sheer physicality of the medium, is key. The brushstrokes aren’t hiding, they’re flaunting themselves. Bochner reminds me a bit of Ed Ruscha, in the way he deals with text as image. But whereas Ruscha is smooth, Bochner is all texture, a kind of anti-smoothness that embraces the messy, the imperfect. The painting invites us to consider the fluid and subjective nature of language itself. There’s no right answer, just a delicious, uncomfortable ambiguity.