Jasper Johns
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jasper Johns | |
 Flag, Encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood,1954-55 |
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| Born | 1930 Augusta, Georgia |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Painting, Printmaking |
| Movement | Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, Pop Art |
| Works | Flag, Numbers, Map, stenciled words |
| Influenced | Pop Art |
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Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930 in Augusta, Georgia) is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking. He is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.
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[edit] Life
Jasper Johns grew up in Allendale, South Carolina. Recounting this period in his life, he says, "In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in." Johns was raised, primarily, by relatives after he was abandoned by his parents. He began drawing when he was three and has continued doing art ever since.[1]
Johns studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948, a total of three semesters.[2] He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at the Parsons School of Design in 1949.[2] While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he had a relationship,[3] as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art. In 1952 and 1953 he was stationed in Sendai, Japan during the Korean War.[2]
In 1958, gallery owner Leo Castelli discovered Johns while visiting Rauschenberg's studio.[2] Castelli gave him his first solo show. It was here that Alfred Barr, the founding director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, purchased four works from his exhibition.[1]
Johns currently lives in Sharon, Connecticut and the Island of Saint Martin.[4]
[edit] Work
He is best known for his painting Flag (1954-55), which he painted after having a dream of the American flag. His work is often described as a Neo-Dadaist, as opposed to pop art, even though his subject matter often includes images and objects from popular culture. Still, many compilations on pop art include Jasper Johns as a pop artist because of his artistic use of classical iconography.
Early works were composed using simple schema such as flags, maps, targets, letters and numbers. Johns' treatment of the surface is often lush and painterly; he is famous for incorporating such media as encaustic (wax-based paint), and plaster relief in his paintings. Johns played with and presented opposites, contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies, much like Marcel Duchamp (who was associated with the Dada movement). Johns also produces intaglio prints, sculptures and lithographs with similar motifs.
Johns' breakthrough move, which was to inform much later work by others, was to appropriate popular iconography for painting, thus allowing a set of familiar associations to answer the need for subject. Though the Abstract Expressionists disdained subject matter, it could be argued that in the end, they had simply changed subjects. Johns neutralized the subject, so that something like a pure painted surface could declare itself. For twenty years after Johns painted Flag, the surface could suffice - for example, in Andy Warhol's silkscreens, or in Robert Irwin's illuminated ambient works.
Abstract Expressionist figures like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning ascribed to the concept of a macho "artist hero", and their paintings are indexical in that they stand effectively as a signature on canvas. In contrast, Neo-Dadaists like Johns and Rauschenberg seemed preoccupied with a lessening of the reliance of their art on indexical qualities, seeking instead to create meaning solely through the use of conventional symbols. Some have interpreted this as a rejection of the hallowed individualism of the Abstract Expressionists. Their works also imply symbols existing outside of any referential context. Johns' Flag, for instance, is primarily a visual object, divorced from its symbolic connotations and reduced to something in-itself.
In 1998, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought Johns' White Flag. While the Met would not disclose how much was paid, "experts estimate [the painting's] value at more than $20 million."[5] In 2006, private collectors Anne and Kenneth Griffin (founder of the Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel Investment Group) bought Johns' False Start for $80 million, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist.[6]
The National Gallery of Art acquired about 1,700 of Johns' proofs in 2007. This made the Gallery home to the largest number of Johns' works held by a single institution. The exhibition showed works from many points in Johns' career, including recent proofs of his prints. [7]
In spring 2008, a ten-year retrospective of Johns' drawings was mounted at New York City's Matthew Marks Gallery.
[edit] Other work
- Flag (1954-55)
- White Flag (1955)[8]
- Target with Plaster Casts (1955)
- False Start (1959)
- Three Flags (1958)
- Coathanger (1960)
- Painting With Two Balls (1960)
- Painted Bronze (1960)
- Device (1962-3)
- Periscope (Hart Crane) (1963)
- The Critic Sees (1964)
- Study for Skin (1962)
- Figure Five (1963-64)
- Voice (1967)
- Skull (1973)
- Tantric Detail (1980)
- Seasons (1986)
[edit] Appearance in popular culture
In 1999, Jasper Johns guest-starred in the animated television series The Simpsons, as himself. In the episode "Mom and Pop Art", Homer Simpson accidentally becomes an artist, and Johns attends one of his exhibitions. Johns is portrayed as a kleptomaniac, stealing food items, lightbulbs, a motorboat, and a painting that Marge is working on.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Finkel, Jori. ARTIST DOSSIER: Jasper Johns. May 2009, Art+Auction.
- ^ a b c d Jasper Johns (born 1930); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- ^ 365gay.com. "Pop Artist Robert Rauschenberg Dies." My 13, 2008. Accessed May 13, 2008.
- ^ Betti-Sue Hertz. “Jasper Johns' Green Angel: The Making of A Print” Resource Library (San Diego Museum of Art) Janaury 29, 2007.
- ^ Vogel, Carol (October 29, 1998). "Met Buys Its First Painting by Jasper Johns". New York Times (New York Times). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E6D6113CF93AA15753C1A96E958260. Retrieved on 2008-02-28.
- ^ Vogel, Carol. "The Gray Areas of Jasper Johns". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/arts/design/03voge.html?ref=arts. Retrieved on 2008-02-03.
- ^ Brett Zongker (March 6, 2007), National Gallery to Get Jasper Johns Prints, The Associated Press, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/24455/national-gallery-to-get-jasper-johns-prints/, retrieved on 2008-04-16
- ^ Works of Art: Modern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art, online June 15, 2007
- Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
[edit] Suggested Readings
- Debra Pearlman. Where Is Jasper Johns? (Adventures in Art), Prestel Pubishing, 2006.
- Jeffrey Weiss. Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965, Yale University Press, 2007.
- Fred Orton. Figuring Jasper Johns, Reaktion Books, 1994.
- Roberta Bernstein, Lilian Tone, Jasper Johns, and Kirk Varnedoe. Jasper Johns: A Retrospective, The Museum of Modern Art, 2006.
- Jasper Johns, Kirk Varnedoe, Christel Hollevoet, and Robert Frank. Jasper Johns: Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews, The Museum of Modern Art, 2002 (out of print).
- Max Kozloff. Jasper Johns, Abrams, 1972. (out of print)
- Michael Crichton. Jasper Johns, Whitney/Abrams, 1977 (out of print).
- Roberta Bernstein. Jasper Johns' Paintings and Sculptures, 1954–1974: "The Changing Focus of the Eye.". Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985.
- David Shapiro. Jasper Johns Drawings 1954-1984. Abrams 1984 (out of print).
- Riva Castleman. Japser Johns a print retrospetive. The Museum of Modern Art 1986.
- Calvin Tomkins. Off the Wall: Robert Rauchenberg and the Artworld of our time. Doubleday. 1980.
- Harold Rosenberg. "Jasper Johns: Things the Mind Already Knows,". Vogue, 1964.
- Eric Fretz. "A Semiotics of the F(l)ag" Gaytext 3 (October 1983), 23-39.
- Rosalind E. Krauss and Christopher Knight. “Split decisions: Jasper Johns in retrospect” Artforum, September 1996. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n1_v35/ai_18749506/?tag=content;col1
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jasper Johns |
- Jasper Johns at the Matthew Marks Gallery
- "The work of Jasper Johns at the National Gallery" Curator Jeffery Weiss discusses the Johns exhibition at the Natinal Gallery. Charlie Rose show April 2007.
- VAGA - To clear rights to reproduce works by Johns
- Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955–1965, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
- States and Variations: Prints by Jasper Johns at the National Gallery of Art
- Jasper Johns (born 1930) Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Jasper Johns bio at artchive.com
- Flag at the Museum of Modern Art
- White Flag at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Collecting Jasper Johns's signature
- False Start Act out a Jasper Johns painting.
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