Money

Date: 2005
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/2013/2013.49.1_1a.jpg?itok=zwmFAWtM width="386" height="291" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/money-86288"]] || Title: **Money**

Artist: **Mel Bochner** Born: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1940

Medium: acrylic and oil on canvas Dimensions: 60 x 80 in. (152.4 x 203.2 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the James F. Dicke Family© 2005, Mel Bochner

Accession: 2013.49.1 || Mel Bochner, one of the most prominent and prolific American artists of the last fifty years, is best known for works that explore the intersection of linguistic and visual representation. One of the pioneers of conceptual art in the 1960s, Bochner has often used numerals and words in his work. The Thesaurus works are the most recent development of this signature practice, and //Money// is a prime example.
 * About the work: **

Bochner begins these works by selecting an initial “key” word to describe his subject, then makes a list of all the synonyms and related words and phrases he can find, edits carefully, and maps out the order in which the selections will appear. Bochner’s word choices in //Money// run the gamut from the sacred to the profane. “Root of all evil” and “filthy lucre” are taken from the New Testament. “Liquid assets” is a term popularized by Wall Street. “Mazuma” and “gelt” are Yiddish slang.

The use of color in these paintings is deliberate as well—the artist’s intention is to defy a linear reading of the words, varying his palette to illustrate and evoke emotion. This technique alters the way we interact with the work. Rather than easily “reading” it, we “see” it the way we do an abstract painting or a landscape—our eyes roam over the canvas, drawn by bright colors, seeking out and finding word-forms almost camouflaged by the background. In the Thesaurus paintings, Bochner uses both semantic and aesthetic exploration to bring us to a new understanding of the opacity of language.

Bochner received his BFA in 1962 and an honorary Doctor of Arts in 2005 from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. He has exhibited widely within the United States and internationally. Most recently, a selection of Bochner’s Thesaurus paintings, including Money, were featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.


 * Resources: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Links: **