Mel Bochner re-creates his sculptures

Now, for a show at Marc Selwyn Fine Art in L.A., he is remaking 10 of these groundbreaking works but out of brilliantly colored glass fragments instead. “Color changes everything,” he said. “The early work had an emphasis on aspects of thought and order. Once you add color, it takes you into another realm: the realm of perception.”

The L.A. show, opening March 17, recreates a 1991show in the Sergio Casoli gallery in Milan, Italy, and that was inspired by a discovery made there. Painter Lucio Fontana had before his death left a box of colored glass pieces in a back room — glass typically crushed and worked into the surface of his paintings.

Bochner can remember the moment he lifted the lid of the box and saw the uncrushed, fist-sized pieces of glass. “I had always wanted to make my early work in color, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that,” he said. “Right then I said to Sergio , give me some glass and I’ll give you a show.”

Upon learning about this work , Marc Selwyn asked Bochner about revisiting the show. But the artist didn’t know the whereabouts of Casoli or the glass, and attempts to have similar glass manufactured led nowhere. Finally, Selwyn tracked down Casoli through a former colleague.

Apart from one sculpture that had been sold, the Italian dealer “had packed up my whole show in a funky little gym bag,” Bochner said. Each piece of glass was wrapped in 1991 pages from the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

jori.finkel@latimes.com