pic1
:Life
Jasper Jones
was born in Augusta and spent his life in South Carolina with his grandparents
after his parent's marriage failed, he went on to live with his mother in
Columbia and completed his high school education there. After that, he spent
several years with his aunt further away from Columbia. He started to drawing
since he was three years old and from his life progressing experience, he
said: "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."
Later on from
1947 to 1948, Johns studied at the University of South Carolina for a total of
three semesters. He later moved to New York City and studied briefly at the Parsons
School of Design in 1949. Shortly after in 1952 to 1953, he travelled to
Sendai, Japan during the Korean War.
In 1954, after
returning to New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg and they became long term
lovers. In the same period he was strongly influenced by the gay couple Merce
Cunningham (A choreographer) and John Cage (A composer). Working together, they
explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas in art.
In 1958, gallery owner Leo Castelli met Johns while visiting Rauschenberg's
studio. Castelli offered him to exhibit his first solo show. It was here that
Alfred Barr, the founding director of New York's Museum of Modern Art,
purchased four pieces from Johns exhibition. In 1963, Johns and Cage established
the “Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts”, now known as “Foundation
for Contemporary Arts in New York City.” Johns currently lives in Sharon,
Connecticut and the Island of Saint Martin. He was elected as a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984.( Gershman, 2011).
pic3:Jasper Johns - False Start
pic4:Jasper Johns's 'Map', 1961, Encaustic, oil, and collage, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Art (C) Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
His Work:
Johns was famous
for painting numerous pieces such as Flag in 1954, which he painted after
having a dream of the American flag. “Flags, numbers, paintbrushes, handprints,
the Mona Lisa: Jasper Johns has made all these, and other universal icons, part
of the vocabulary of contemporary art.”(Bible, 2006) His work is often
described as "Neo-Dadaist", an opposite to the modern "Pop art".
Although his subject matter often included some images and objects from popular
culture. Many collections on Pop Art include Jasper Johns as a Pop artist
because of his artistic utilize of standard iconography.
At the
beginning his work was basically collected using simple drawing such as flags,
maps, targets, letters and numbers. Johns played with and presented challenges,
impossibilities, and ironies which he overcame much like Marcel Duchamp (who
was associated with the Dada movement). “He has also worked in sculpture and,
more extensively, printmaking. Additionally, he continues to exhibit and is
permanently on the list of the top 10 most expensive living artists.( Essak,
2003).”
pic5: jasper johns flags
pic6:Jasper Johns's 'Flag', Encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, 42 x 61 in., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1954-55. Art (C) Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
.jpg)
pic7:Detail of Flag (1954-55)
.jpg)
Three Flags by Jasper Johns (1958)pic8:
Johns' made
some progress by testing different methods by which he tried to present his
different ideas about his pieces to the public. He went though his different
ideas testing them one by one until he saw his best option. “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 speak out itself. For twenty
years after Johns painted Flag, the outside could be adequate.” (). Conceptual
Expressionist figures like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning subscribed to
the perception of a macho "Artist Hero," and their paintings are
indexical in that they stand effectively as a signature on work of art. In dissimilarity,
Neo-Dadaists like Johns and Rauschenberg seemed worried about a reduction of
the dependence of their art on indexical qualities, seeking instead to create
meaning only through the use of predictable symbols much like John's earlier
pieces.
Johns' Flag
piece, for example, is mainly considered a visual object, separated from its
symbolic connotations and reduced to something in-itself.
“In 1990, he
was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He is represented by the Matthew Marks
Gallery in New York City, and in the spring of 2008, a ten-year presentation of
Johns' drawings was shown there. In 2011 he received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom from President Barack Obama, becoming the first painter to be given a
Presidential Medal of Freedom since Alexander Calder in 1977.”( Harp, 2011).
pic10: White flag,
pic11:President Barack Obama presents the 2010 Medal of Freedom to American artist Jasper Johns on Feburary 15, 2011 at the White House in Washington, DC. The Medal of Freedom is the Nation's highest civilian honor and is presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. Photo by Tim Sloan/ AFP/ Getty Images
Modernism:
He is one of
the most famous pop artists and the one who produces the most challenging and
disturbing work. His stimulating descriptions is the source of lithographs,
Fragments-According to What, made in 1971. His latest work which was 'Even in
Johns' contains strange markings and traces of objects which are mysterious and
reflect upon his earlier piece “According
to What” 1964. (Kaplan,1976, p. 247).
pic12:A picture of the original painting, called According To What (1964)
Techniques used:
In 1971 Johns
crossed out his own signature through focusing in ligograph detail in painting.
It is this quality of gamesmanship which succeeded in “According to What”-Johns
versus Duchamp and art versus reality. Whole and disjointed "real"
objects cast "real" shadows and, in addition, some create false
impressions like the coat hanger which is traced upon the piece and then curved
away leaving a ghost of its original appearance. Colors assume many shows. They
are named by hinged free-swinging letters, read as impressions, presented as a
chart of circles and seen as rectangles of red, yellow, and blue. This mixture
of the existing and the abstract is similar to Duchamp work. Johns admitted wishing to
mystify the issue of identities on one level; on still another, he alludes to
Duchamp's supposed progression to painting Tu m'. According to What begins to
come within grasp via slight connections recalling the authority of this model.
Both paintings are organized across a huge creative spread which reads like an
record of the real and the false. Tu m' includes particular renderings of
shadows from Duchamp's ready-mades, projected from outside the work next to
represented objects and objects themselves. The majority impressive of these, a
bottle brush projected through a false rent in the canvas, might explain the
odd mark which johns placed noticeably to the left of Duchamp's profile and
above the identifying initials, MD, on the inside if the hinged flap. A
lollipop-like form with a splash-drip effect, made by a spray gun, the mark
looks a lot like the shadow of the bottle brush in Tu m'.( Kaplan,1976 ).
pic13 :Artist: Jasper Johns Title: Target Year: 1970 Medium: Offset Lithograph, Watercolor Pads and Brush
1955. Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surmounted by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front,
John's
work relating politically and socially:
Johns has also
been seen as connecting to the society around him as well as having a small
political connection. Referring back to when I mentioned the award granted by
President Barack Obama (Medal of Freedom), John was the only artist/sculptor
that was awarded this in 2011 since Alexander Calder in 1977. This shows that
John's work is unique in its form compared to other artists as his pieces often
reflect some of the society that was around when he created such pieces. Also,
the fact that he received a Medal of Freedom suggests ties were made to his
audience. Somehow, John managed to grip
many collectors attention and interest as not only was his work rare to acquire
due to their uniqueness, but collectors favored his large scale paintings more
such as "Land's End" due to their extreme rarity. (Harp, 2011).
Conclusion:
In conclusion,
I can say with no doubt that John's is one of the best artists in the past 50
years as he earned multiple medal such as the Medal of Freedom which was only
awarded to him where his unique work and his extra-ordinary style lifted him
above other artists and his works had reflected more modern styles than his
achievements making him one of the best artists in the past 50 years.
·
Bibliography:
- Tono, Yoshiaki. "Report from New York." Space Design, no. 21 (September 1966): 23. Reproduction of According to What, 1964.
- Zerner, Henri. "Universal Limited Art Editions." L’Oeil (Paris), no. 120 (December 1964): 36—43, 82. Review of "American Painters: New Lithographer," The Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y.
- "Jasper Johns: A Retrospective Exhibition, At Whitney Museum." New York Antique Almanac (September 1977). Announcement. JJSA.
- BIO . (2003). Retrieved April 13, 2012, from jasperjohns: http://www.jasperjohns.com/bio.shtml
- Jasper Johns. (2000-2011). Retrieved April 12, 2012, from metmuseum: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/john/hd_john.htm
- Jasper Johns. (2011). Retrieved April 13, 2012, from artcyclopedia: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/johns_jasper.html
- Jasper Johns-about the painter. (2008, March 28). Retrieved April 13, 2012, from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/jasper-johns/about-the-painter/54/
- johnsbio. (n.d.). Retrieved April 9, 2012, from artchive: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/J/johnsbio.html
http://www.festivalkarsh.ca/images/exhibition/pictures/PGC%20174_Jasper%20Johns.jpg
pic3: jasper johns - false start
pic4 :Jasper Johns's 'Map', 1961, Encaustic, oil, and collage, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
pic5: jasper johns flags
pic6: Jasper Johns's 'Flag', Encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood,
pic7: detail of flag
pic8: jasper johns three flags + the mona lisa
pic9 : flag detail
pic10 : white flag
pic11: jasper johns with barack obama
pic12: jasper johns - according to what
pic13: jasper johns targets
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2128/2498186859_7192fcdef9_o.jpg
links:
Jasper Johns at the National Gallery of Art:
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/tsearch?oldartistid=65280&imageset=1
jasper johns gallery:
http://www.picsearch.com/pictures/celebrities/artists%20and%20painters/artists%202/jasper%20johns.html
links:
Jasper Johns at the National Gallery of Art:
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/tsearch?oldartistid=65280&imageset=1
jasper johns gallery:
http://www.picsearch.com/pictures/celebrities/artists%20and%20painters/artists%202/jasper%20johns.html
The discussion on the work is very interesting but it lacks the in-text references.
ReplyDeleteThe biographical information is unnecessary according to the guidelines of the essay brief.
You need also to write the sources of your images in case you haven't.
The discussion on the work is very interesting but it lacks the in-text references.
ReplyDeleteThe biographical information is unnecessary according to the guidelines of the essay brief.
You need also to write the sources of your images in case you haven't