Figuring Jasper JohnsThe author begins this challenging monograph by probing Modernism's surfaces and subjects, its public and private meanings, in order to establish Johns's importance as the modern allegorical artist in the years after Abstract Expressionism. Yet, Figuring Jasper Johns is not an essay that presumes to offer an instant interpretation. Rather, Fred Orton self-consciously constructs a "Jasper Johns" whose work is introduced and explained in three chapters, each of which addresses a specific picture or sculpture like Flag, Painted Bronze (Savarin) and Untitled 1992. These in-depth studies situate individual works in their social context as well as in Johns's oeuvre. Fred Orton's purpose is to get to terms with - and find terms for - a difficult and elusive body of work by one of the most important artists of the 20th century. |
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Abstract Expressionism allegory American flag Art & Language artist associated Barr beholder bits brushes canvas with objects Castelli Cicada collage on canvas colours criticism crosshatchings Dada Dancers discourse dream Duchamp effect essay Feelings Female Fig Leaf figure Flag's flagstones fragments Frank O'Hara Gallery Greenberg Hart Crane hatched surface Ibid idea illus Jakobson Jasper Johns John Cage Johns New York Johns's Johns's art Johns's painting kind Kozloff Lacan Leo Castelli Leo Steinberg London look meaning Memory metaphor metonymy Michael Crichton Modern Art Modernist painting Museum of Modern neo-Dada oil on canvas Painted Bronze Painters Paintings and Sculptures patriotic picture Plaster Casts poem Pollock Private collection reference relation represent representation Rhetoric Robert Rauschenberg Roberta Bernstein Savarin seems seen and understood signifiers skull Stars and Stripes Steinberg story studio subject-matter symbol synecdoche Tantra Tantric Detail Target with Plaster thing trope Untitled visual writing