|
Born
in 1930, Jasper Johns spent his childhood in
small South Carolina towns. At age twenty-four,
he moved to New York. From the mid–1950s, Johns's
work combined cool logic and private compulsion.
His breakthrough 1954–55 painting Flag instigated
a series of paintings of the American flag and
of targets that stunned the art world. As his
paintings became more complex, Johns placed
alphabetical and numerical sequences in grids,
and inserted words and actual objects into his
art.
Jasper Johns's art brings mastery, simplicity,
and contradiction. His methodical working process
combines intense deliberation and experimentation,
obsessive craft, cycles of revision and repetition,
and decisive shifts of direction. Johns also
frequently borrows images from other artists,
which, ironically, only underscores the originality
of his own vision.
|
