A review
Jasper Johns is America’s Vitruvian Man who moves freely within the scope of an intersecting square and circle. For over 60 years, his paintings and prints have reflected an ongoing examination of self that has emerged when seen in juxtaposition to art historical masterpieces and more contemporary wartime experiences. Much like the complex, mysterious graphic known as “Monogram of the English Alphabet” that contains 26 letters and 10 numbers in a single square, Jasper John’s takes viewers deep into layered imagery that imparts a series of brief, incomplete messages. One idea suddenly becomes 2 — and so on, throughout time.
After the Korean War started in 1951, Johns was drafted into the US Army and served a post in Sendai, Japan from 1952 to 1953. He returned to New York City soon after to become an artist and lived in a studio loft on Pearl Street near Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror” is on view simultaneously at both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Together, both exhibitions reveal the incredible depth of a prolific career that has flourished quietly within a marginal space. Without pause, Johns’ art has defined itself away from the artist and against the limitations posed by the Other, himself the outsider.
“Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror” is on view until February 13, 2022.
Jill Conner, New York
