Jasper Johns
Contemporary artist; painter and printer.
Bend color names which should be made of neon or copper tubing. Place an object on a surface – trace the object – then bend the object – leaving some part of it attached.
..I don’t see any point in simply stating something that is easily available. But then that may just be my own psychology, a kind of negative position. It seems to me that if you avoid everything you can avoid, then you do what you can’t avoid doing, and you do what is helpless, and unavoidable. That seems to me more interesting than any other position at this moment – for me anyway.
Make something, a kind of object, which as it changes or falls apart (dies as it were) or increases in its parts (grows as it were) offers no clue as to what its state or form or nature was at any previous time. Physical and Metaphysical. Obstinacy. Could this be a useful object?
Shake (shift) parts of some of the letters in Voice (2). A-not-complete-unit, or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together. One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of “thought.” It is not the “thought” which needs showing.. ..It is not interesting and should not be shown (to be) as interesting that the parts can be shifted. It was always true that they can be shifted. 'Duchamp's ironing board'. Does Teeny Duchamp have an ironing board?
Once, I made a kind of sculpture of a flag in bronze: it was an edition of three, I think. One of them was given on some occasion to President Kennedy. I became very upset that this was happening. It was given on Flag Day! (he laughs). It seemed to me to be such a terrible thing to happen. I complained bitterly to my very good friend John Cage (the composer, fh). He said: “Don’t let it worry you. Just consider it as a pun on your work” (he laughs).
Merce (Cunningham, fh) is my favorit artist in any field. Sometimes I’m pleased by the complexity of a work I paint. By the fourth day I realize it’s simple. Nothing Merce does (choreography for dance, fh) is simple. Everything has a fascinating richness and multiplicity of direction. (Johns did a lot of décors for Cunningham, as Robert Rauschenberg did and Frank Stella, fh)
(to see the painting)..as an object, as a real thing in itself. (on his Flag-paintings)
Donald Judd spoke of a "neutral" surface, but what is meant? Neutrality must involve some relationship (to other ways of painting, thinking?) He would have to include these in his work to establish the neutrality of that surface. He also used "non" or "not" – expressive – this is an early problem – a negative solution or – expression of new sense – which can help one into – what one has not known. "Neutral" expresses an intention.
My primary concern is visual form. The visual meaning may be discovered afterwards – by those who look for it. Two meanings have been ascribed to these American Flag paintings of mine. One position is: 'He's painted a flag so you don’t have to think of it as a flag but only as a painting'. The other is: 'You are enabled by the way he has painted it to see it as a flag and not as a painting.' Actually both positions are implicit in the paintings, so you don't have to choose.
..it seems to me that you could take the opposite point of view, and say that continuity (in language and in thought, B.K.) is the thing that is so distressing and that what one can do is attempt to create a discontinuous situation. It seems to me that continuity is almost a static concept. And since we have the concept of discontinuity it seems to me that it would be more interesting to attempt to establish that.
I met him (Cunningham, fh) around 1953 after a performance I saw. He was teaching and making dances for his company and was already working with John Cage. What interested me initially wasn’t just the movement but also the music he worked with, which was unfamiliar to me.. ..Later Bob Rauschenberg had been doing sets and costumes for the Cunningham Company.. ..I can’t say exactly how, but for a period of time, Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg, and I saw each other frequently and exchanged ideas. John was very interested in presenting his ideas to other people, so it was impossible to be around and not to learn.. ..He could apply his ideas on space and time to painting, or music or architecture.. ..I don’t have a clear sense of cause and effect in my painting, but it is probably there.
Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the board. Use this in a painting. – ruler on board.
The relationship between the object & the event. Can they 2 be separated? Is one a detail of the other? What is the meeting? Air?
I don’t want my work to be an exposure of my feelings.
An invisible drawing made in the air. Make a drawing behind your back. Make a stolen painting.
Cubism is an anatomical chart of a way of seeing external objects. But I want to confuse the meaning of the act of looking.
I have attempted to develop my thinking in such a way that the work I’ve done is not me – not to confuse my feelings with what I produced. I didn’t want my work to be an exposure of my feelings. Abstract Expressionism was so lively – personal identity and painting were more or less the same., and I tried to operate the same way. But I found I couldn’t do anything that would be identical with my feelings. So I worked in such a way that I could say that it’s not me. That accounts for the separation.
I’m especially interested in the music of John Cage.. ..I would like to do some experimenting with the relationship between his freeform sound and free-form art.
What is meant by "the representation of space"? What distinguishes one representation from another? Does this mean "how does one see that one thing is not another thing?" What constitutes a change of focus?.. ..What about "another way of establishing (?) "thingness"? "Something" can be either one thing or another (without turning the rabbit on its side)..
I make what it pleases me to make.. ..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 intuitively paint flags.