“LOL Alternatives”
20.5″ h x 15.25″ w, screenprint on red paper (signed, numbered 89/150) (2014)
There are several artists in my collection whose initial appeal to me was that they scratched the Mel Bochner itch, but thus far this piece is the most Bochner-esque of the not-Bochners. Playing with different types of speech within the same category is very Bochner, though I don’t recall him specifically doing it with digital language. As a millennial, I grew up in the era of instant messaging and text speak, and some (/most/all) of these “LOL alternatives” may seem pretty outlandish. But then, it never was entirely clear how a group of rather opaque acronyms (“Laughing Out Loud”? Really?) became entirely ubiquitous to everyone seemingly overnight.
David Schraub 