Jasper Johns: Seeing with the Mind's Eye

by Gary Garrels (Editor), Roberta Bernstein (Contributor), Brian M. Reed (Contributor)

An eloquent, accessible survey of the work of the iconic American artist

For more than sixty years, Jasper Johns has found new ways to explore how art creates meaning in the mind's eye. His most celebrated paintings from the 1950s and 1960s, with their bold colors, popular imagery, and sculptural elements, had an enormous impact on the development of pop, minimalism, and conceptual art. Johns is undoubtedly one of the most significant artists of the 20th century, and his work has inspired some of the field's most incisive critical thinking and writing. At eighty-two, Johns is still active, as are his critics and observers. Jasper Seeing with the Mind's Eye brings together established and younger scholars with the aim of exposing a new generation to the variety of critical approaches to this contemporary master. Contributions range from historical to critical and poetic and, unlike most large surveys, take a close, in-depth look at specific works of art and series, including paintings, drawings, graphics, sculptural pieces, and illustrated books from all periods of Johns's career.

Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Exhibition San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 11/03/12–02/03/13

170 pages, Hardcover

First published November 27, 2012

About the author

Gary Garrels is an independent curator who lives and works on the North Fork of Long Island. He previously held curatorial positions at the Dia Art Foundation, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Reviews

[William West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, if small, show of Johns's oeuvre. I recognize that repetition is part of this painter/philosopher's aesthetic. He's the neo-Idealist of American moderism. But on an aesthetic level I sometimes find myself underwhelmed by the work of this master. I'm thankful to this exhibit for reminding me that Johns can wow, and not on a purely intellectual level. "Highway" and "Land's End" are extraordinary pieces. The latter, in particular, which takes as its subject the departing gesture of a suicidal poet along with interpretative engravings of the poet's words, marries interpretation (criticism?) of the other-as-oeuvre with absolute, gutsy empathy. Johns wanted an art that embodied idea, violating the binary between idealism and materialism.

[Peggy Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written taste of what jasper Johns is about. Makes a great introduction to this iconic artist.