Jasper Johns

New York, Lorence-Monk Gallery, Jasper Johns Etchings: 1967 - 1989, October - November 1989

Brazil, São Paulo, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Jasper Johns: Pairs, Trios, Portfolios, June - August 2012

“I’m always interested in the physical form of whatever I’m doing and often repeat an image in another physical form just to see what happens, what the difference is....” – Jasper Johns (Jasper Johns quoted in "An Interview with Jasper Johns about Silkcreening", Jasper Johns, Prints from the Leo Castelli Collection, 1991, p. 23)

Together, 1st Etchings and 1st Etchings, 2nd State provide a remarkable glimpse into the prolific draftsmanship and conceptual vision that have characterized Jasper Johns’s titanic career for over six decades. Executed in 1967 and 1967-1969 respectively, the two portfolios lay bare the mastery that has cemented Johns’s place alongside Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Munch, and Picasso as one of the greatest printmakers of any era. 

Consistent throughout 1st Etchings and 1st Etchings, 2nd State are careful renderings of some of Johns’s most recognizable motifs: the flags, ale cans, numbers, and paint brushes that form his signature visual lexicon. Referred to as “things the mind already knows,” Johns’s found objects were carefully chosen because of their ubiquity in everyday life, thus allowing him to perform controlled examinations on form and meaning [1]. The objects that are presented here as early print versions have also been explored by Johns in other media, be it sculpture, painting, or drawing. These variations on a theme speak to the curiosity and precision that are integral to Johns’s approach to printmaking. Careful changes to ink tonalities, paper formats, and plate placements reveal a relentless pursuit of experimentation with recognizable iconography.

Embodying the Duchampian spirit of appropriating and recontextualizing forms, 1st Etchings and 1st Etchings, 2nd State are rich surveys of Jasper Johns’s influential oeuvre. Johns’s repeated manipulations of found objects epitomize an innovative style of representation that helped to usher in the Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual Art movements. Across the two present portfolios, Johns tests the visual possibilities of printmaking; the resulting close studies are achievements that are demanding and rewarding in equal measure.

[1] Jasper Johns quoted in Leo Steinberg, "Jasper Johns: The First Seven Years of His Art", in Other Criteria (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972; first pub'd in Metro, Nos. 4 /5 , 1962, and by George Wittenborn, New York, 1963), pp. 31