Mel Bochner, an artist who produced often witty work, exploring the boundaries of art and the power of language in drawings, painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, books, installations and public art — new ideas in conceptional art —  died on Feb. 12 in Manhattan. He was 84.

“In 1970, I wrote on a gallery wall, ‘Language Is Not Transparent,’” Mr. Bochner told curators at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022, when the museum held a retrospective of his work. It was a statement that all language has hidden agendas and motives. The first thing that power corrupts is language…My work doesn’t address political issues directly. But at the same time, I do agree with Charlie Chaplin: ‘If it isn’t funny, it isn’t art.’”