Mel Bochner’s newest body of cast paper works draws on his iconic Exasperations series to examine direct, aggressive language as an expression of irritation, annoyance, vexation, and ill-humor at the state of the world. Utilizing techniques developed at Two Palms, each work in this new series is rendered entirely as one piece of cast and pigmented paper, the text jutting out toward the viewer. The depth of the text rendered sculpturally in the paper allows the artist to use light and shadow in such a way that they become part of the work, manipulating the paper’s colors.

Every piece in the series features the same text. This repetition encourages the view to consider how the material, paper, color, light, and shadow manipulate the text’s meaning and change the intonation of the phrase as the viewer reads the words aloud.