Artist 46: Jasper Johns

Because well, it's Jasper Johns.

I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of his at the Modern Art half of the Smithsonian once in high school. And back then I really didn't get it. Now that I'm a little older and wiser, I understand that he's kind of a big deal.

Johns paints things that are extremely familiar, like numbers and letters and the American flag. In that way, he was influenced by the da da movement. I guess, in that way, his work was also kind of similar to my last artist post. He takes something that is way overdone, common and ordinary, and paints it in a way that gives it a new life as art.

The exhibit I saw had a lot to do with the primary colors. There were pieces where red, yellow, and blue were written in different colors which also has psychological significance. It's a common psych trick to show someone a color's name in a different color font, and ask what color the word is written in. The person will usually instinctively say the word spelled out even though they know that actually it's the other color.
It also had sculptural elements to it, which at the time was my favorite element. Now, I find it confusing to the concepts he's exploring. He has hands coming out of different pieces. I think one of them was a target. Anyways, I'm not sure what that has to do with the conceptual meaning of the pieces, but I guess it is all as arbitrary as da da anyways so what does it matter, right?

Here's the PBS page on Johns.