Then we gave the 10 galleries to each other like a gift: “These are yours now. But we each took the lead on different ones. ‘This took place even in the gap between the conception and the creation of the checklists, which we did totally together for 10 paired galleries. ‘I keep thinking about this idea of finishing each other’s sentences,’ says Rothkopf, ‘but perhaps not always how the person who began the sentence imagined they would end, and that’s been a very beautiful thing to experience. What’s more, the curators acknowledge, it suggests how they themselves mirrored one another’s work, conceiving complementary checklists, installing reciprocal galleries, and expressing cognate conceits in Johns’s work. In a self-reflective way, the title suggests how the two exhibitions, after a fashion, mirror one another.
The show’s title, Mind/Mirror, suggests not only the presentation of concepts springing from the artist’s mind, but also the fact that mirroring is a formal and conceptual device Johns has used throughout his career. Rather, the two shows will engage in a dialogue through time and place.
In this way, each exhibition aims to offer a thorough overview of the artist’s expansive body of work for those who will see only one show, without being repetitive for dedicated viewers who travel to see both. His exploration of early motifs such as flags, targets and numbers, which the curators point out would lay the foundations for art forms such as Pop and certain strains of Conceptualism, are represented through flags and maps in New York and numbers in Philadelphia. For example, John’s exploration of place is presented via his relationship to Japan at the Philadelphia Museum, and his links to South Carolina are put forth at the Whitney. Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is structured around 10 ‘methodological lenses’, as the curators describe them, each expressed with distinct works at the two venues. What if the very structure of the show is informative in relationship to the artist?’ That’s the way we normally think about shows, is that they have content, and the content tells you about the artist. ‘What I always dream of is a show whose very experience tells you something about the artist, and not just the content. ‘The show was a kind of experiment, and there’s the beauty of it,’ said Basualdo. Previous retrospectives have been organised by the Museum of Modern Art in 1996 and, in 2012, by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has continued to challenge viewers ever since, rigorously experimenting in media including sculpture and printmaking, in which he has deeply explored art historical motifs including the Mona Lisa and Mattias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. His early work contrasts that of his predecessors in its dispassionate look, in his paintings, at everyday objects like flags, letters, numbers - objects he famously described as ‘things the mind already knows’. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Jasper Johns, born in 1930, was a leading member - along with Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham and John Cage - of a generation of New York artists who followed the Abstract Expressionists. Organised by Carlos Basualdo, the Philadelphia Museum’s senior curator of contemporary art, and Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s senior deputy director and chief curator, this distinctive exhibition concept allows for a much deeper exploration of a 70-year career than any one museum could host alone neither curator was able to think of any precedent. Both institutions have long histories of collecting and exhibiting the 91-year-old artist. Rather than the customary presentation organised by two or more institutions and travelling between them, Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror presents complementary, simultaneous exhibitions at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and, 100 miles to the southwest, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Contact him and read his work at retrospectives of major figures often qualify as ‘sprawling,’ but a recently opened exhibition lends new meaning to the term. Robert Brum is a freelance journalist who writes about the Hudson Valley. We feel it’s a work of art, in and of itself.” Matthews added: “It’s a home of exceptional provenance, beautifully sited and well balanced with antique, rustic and contemporary architectural features. “There are a lot of appreciators of Johns’ work and it's possible that he created some of his most famous works in the studio in this home,” Matthews said. Matthews called the home’s availability “a rare opportunity to own a piece of history.”
“People are very inspired by the light they get pretty much everywhere, particularly in the studio room because you have light streaming in from above and from virtually all sides.”Ĭo-listing agent Jacob P. “He created light all over the place that he could paint by, and in doing so he created fantastic light for photography,” she said.
0 kommentar(er)
