The Joys of Yiddish in the work of Mel Bochner

Abstract

This article explores the evolving manifestations of Yiddish in the work of contemporary artist Mel Bochner. A founding figure of American conceptual art, Bochner has continuously re-examined the unstable nature of language. Yet, as the following paper will argue, Bochner’s postvernacular invocation of Yiddish calls into crisis this central contention of his work. Beginning with an analysis of selected works from his post-2000 Thesaurus Paintings, I suggest that Yiddish first served Bochner as a tool to confirm the instability of language by highlighting the futility of the idea of the synonym. I then turn to the multi-site work The Joys of Yiddish, which was mounted in Chicago (2006) and Munich (2013), to demonstrate the shift that occurs in Bochner’s subsequent Yiddish-themed art. Analyzing The Joys of Yiddish, I show that Bochner deploys a vision of Yiddish that is based on a set of received assumptions and stereotypes promulgated in twentieth-century American popular culture. As will become clear, Bochner’s conception of Yiddish produces a surfeit of questions not about the language’s complexity or instability but about its superficiality and anticipated signification. Extending Bochner’s painterly assertion that “language is not transparent,” this article asks: What about Yiddish?