Jasper Johns

born Augusta, GA (USA) 1930

Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930 in Augusta, Georgia) is an American artist. He grew up in Allendale, South Carolina. Recounting this period in his life, Johns 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 studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948, a total of three semesters. He then moved to New York and did some brief studying at Parsons School of Design in 1949. While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenburg, 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.

In 1958, the gallery owner Leo Castelli visited the studio of Robert Rauschenburg and, during this visit, discovered Jasper Johns.

He is best known for his painting "Flag" (1954). 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.

Early works were composed using simple schemas 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 is of particular interest when viewed from a position of Peircean semiotics. In contrast to the concept of macho "artist hero" as ascribed to Abstract Expressionist figures such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, whose paintings are fully indexical (that is, standing effectively as an all-over canvas signature), "Neo-Dadaists" like Johns and Robert Rauschenberg seem 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, painted indexically in mockery of the hallowed individuality of the Abstract Expressionists.

In 1998, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York paid over twenty million dollars for Johns' White Flag.

Jasper Johns guest-starred on an episode of "The Simpsons" as himself, stealing various items from different locations. He first steals buffet food and lightbulbs from a museum, and then steals Marge's incomplete painting in the ending credits as Homer and Marge embrace.

Select Timeline

• 1949 - Attended an Art School in New York
• 1954 - Met the artist Robert Rauschenberg, the composer John Cage and the modern dancer Merce Cunningham
• 1954 - Began a series of paintings based on the American flag
• 1956 - Had his first exhbition at the Leo Castelli Gallery
• 1959 - The Carnegie Prize at the Biennial in Pittsburgh
• 1967 - Prize at the Biennial in Sao Paulo
• 1988 - Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale

Select Exhibitions

• 1958 - New York, Leo Castelli Gallery
• 1964 - Venice, Biennale
• 1964 - Kassel, Documenta 3
• 1967 - Sao Paulo, Biennial
• 1968 - Kassel, Documenta 4
• 1972 - Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum
• 1972 - Kassel, Documenta 5
• 1976 - Krefeld, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum
• 1977 - Kassel, Documenta 6
• 1986 - Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle
• 1988 - Venice, Biennale
• 1996 - New York, Museum of Modern Art
• 1996 - New York, Whitney Museum of American Art
• 1997 - Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Werke aus dem Besitz des Kunstlers
• 1997 - Cologne, Museum Ludwig
• 1999 - San Francisco, Museum of Modern Art
• 1999 - Philadelphia, Museum of Art
• 2001 - New York, Leo Castelli Gallery
• 2001 - Seattle, Seattle Art Museum
• 2002 - New York, Whitney Museum, de Kooning to Today
• 2003 - Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Stage of Drawing: Gesture & Act
• 2003 - Miami, Miami Art Museum, American Tableaux
• 2003 - Bilbao, Guggenheim, Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons
• 2004 - Santa Fe, NM, SITE Santa Fe Biennial 2004
• 2004 - London, British Museum, Matisse to Freud: A Critic's Choice
• 2004 - Vienna, Albertina, Pop Art & Minimalismus
• 2004 - Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie, Das MoMA in Berlin
• 2004 - Stockholm, Moderna Museet, The Pontus Hulten Collection
• 2004 - Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Past Things and Present: Jasper Johns Since 1983
• 2004 - Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum, Jasper Johns - Numbers

Select Artwork

• White Flag (1955)
• False Start (1959)
• Study for Skin (1962)
• Figure Five (1963-64)
• Seasons (1986)
• Three Flags (1958)

Quotes

• "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."
• "I tend to like things that already exist."
• "I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts."
• "As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion."
• "Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another."
• "I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason."
• "I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea."
• "I'm interested in things which suggest the world rather than express the personality... The most conventional thing, the most ordinary thing - it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy."
• "The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another."
• ""
• "One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space."

Publications

• Jasper Johns - by Michael Crichton, Harry N Abrams; Revised edition (April 1, 1994)
• Jasper Johns: A Retrospective - by Kirk Varnedoe, Roberta Bernstein, Museum of Modern Art (March 2006)
• Past Things and Present: Jasper Johns Since 1983 - by Jasper Johns, Joan Rothfuss, Kathy Halbreich, Walker Art Center, Walker Art Center (November 2003)
• Jasper Johns: Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews - by Jasper Johns, Museum of Modern Art (July 15, 2002)
• Jasper Johns: Catenary - by Jasper Johns, Scott Rothkopf, Steidl MM (May 2005)
• Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965 - by Jeffrey Weiss, Yale University Press (January 10, 2007)

Quick Facts

• Jasper Johns grew up in Allendale, South Carolina
• 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.
• In 1998, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York paid more than $20 million for Johns's White Flag.
• Jasper Johns once guest-starred on The Simpsons as himself. In the episode "Mom and Pop Art",

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