These, in t urn, are given explicit chromatic identities, so that they become color patches-of red, yellow, blue-seeming to pop all over the surface in cool and warm interactions. Paint strokes have been distributed in a sequence of “burst” forms, their energy tautly flung out, like blunted and broken spokes. In this respect, False Start is a remarkable introduction to a fresh set of problems, not at al belied by its self-deprecating title (which was coincidentally suggested by a horse-racing printing a bar). He moves ahead by programmatically revolving. (The only obvious criterion by which one can measure his success or failure in conventional terms is legibility, as, for example, where it is so sadly lacking in the “0 through 9” series of 1961.) In the end, Johns’s indifference to anything but intellectual dismantling and realignment affirms a new dimension in the way an artist can develop. Because he withholds his engagement precisely where one anticipates it, he eludes the accusation of being either self-derivative or eclectic. For the artist’s involvement is not with the intensity with which any presence can be maintained, but with his resourcefulness in altering contexts so that familiar presences are undermined, along with any expectation that he be consistent. The components of a Johns picture may appear just as arbitrary as they may look justified. As a result, form and content have none of the usual organic, causative relationship, or even appropriateness of style (what was once called “decorum” in neoclassic theory). Just as any single image might be reformulated endlessly within one picture ( Gray Numbers,1958), so, too, whole thematic entities are constantly reincarnated in alien-or seemingly alien-packaging. Permutation is the only guidepost in that merry-go-round which is his stylistic evolution. Rather, Johns is so little given to sentimentalizing his motifs, or bothered by repetition, that he can push them through the maze of his various strategies like so many esthetic pawns. For the processes of hybridization and deliberate mismating are the control factors in an outlook which simply does not organize itself by any modulating line or overt transition. Clearly, then, the standards of continuity which would judge some works of art to be stragglers at a given moment, and others premature arrivals, do not apply in this instance. If we look ahead, he was not to finish Figure 5 until 1960, and Good Time Charley until 1961. Belonging to this year, for example, are Shade, False Start, Jubilee, Two Flags, Black Target, Highway, Thermometer, and Device Circle. Ross, Howard Sacks and Vesna Todorović Sacks, Katie and Tony Schaeffer, Karen Goodman Tarte, Robbi and Bruce Toll, and two anonymous donors.THE STRANDS OF JASPER JOHN’S activity as they interlaced in 1959 are extremely complex. Heyman, Linda and George Kelly, Sueyun and Gene Locks, Richard and Nancy Lubin, Susan and James Meyer, Leslie Miller and Richard Worley, Mitchell and Hilarie Morgan Family Foundation, Lyn M. Caplan, the Robert Lehman Foundation, Marsha and Jeffrey Perelman, and an anonymous donor.Īdditional support is provided by Irma and Norman Braman, Clarissa Alcock Bronfman and Edgar Bronfman Jr., Isabel and Agustín Coppel, Roberta and Carl Dranoff, Jaimie and David Field, Kathy and Richard Fuld, Mrs. Significant support is provided by Constance R. Forman, The Sachs Charitable Foundation, Helen and Charles Schwab, and the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art-including special gifts from the estates of Patricia Sweet Clutz and Phyllys “Fifi” Fleming. Major support is provided by the museum’s Contemporary Art Committee, The Davenport Family Foundation, Ellsworth Kelly Foundation and Jack Shear, Agnes Gund, Leonard and Judy Lauder, Ms. Dietrich II Fund for Excellence in Contemporary Art, the Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Fund for Exhibitions, the Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions, and the Kathleen C. Generous support is provided by Constance Hess Williams and Sankey Williams and Matthew Marks, and through the museum’s endowment with the Daniel W.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |