The lukewarm (or downright negative, aggressive) reception New York has given to Jasper Johns’ new oeuvre (at Matthew Marks Gallery) should come as no surprise. Johns is bound to disappoint, fail and be ferociously criticized since the eighties.
Collectors fight for his work, which is not publicly sold in galleries but snatched privately from the artist. Museums die for his work, patrons buy his work and present it to museums. Museums organize exhibitions of Jasper Johns: “Jasper Johns since 1974”. “Jasper Johns since 1983”, “Jasper Johns: New Work”. Dealers, collectors, curators cherish and chase Jasper Johns.
Critics, art historians, writers are all but content.
I cannot but wonder whether he himself, mighty Jasper Johns cares, whether is that what he prizes and wishes he had, the only support he fails to achieve over and over in the last years, decades.
“Being Jasper Johns” must not be easy- living legend, revered god, national treasure.
An insightful profile of Brice Marden published in “ARTnews” had a friend of the abstract artist talking about the difficulties Marden sometimes had dealing with “Being Brice Marden”. I find the dedication of Johns and Marden to art commendable. In this present “scissors-and-glue” bubbling young art world we’re living that considers money, rapid success, fairs, parties and beautiful people as the Five Commandments of Art, true artists like Jasper Johns and Brice Marden, tirelessly devoted to the art of painting as their only way of living, breathing, existing are a rarity we should care for more.
Theirs is the real thing, art in capitals, no crafty bullshit.
The negative responses to Jasper Johns’s “Catenary” series are just the habitual lines, but I admit they surprise me, and sadden me a bit. For the “Catenary” exhibition at Matthew Marks is a surprisingly moving, beautiful exploration of color, surface, form in subtlety and lyricism- it deserves a much warmer reception than the one New York has given.
The few reviews published have attacked, once more, the impossibility of understanding, the negation of meaning, the tiresome repetition of exhausted yet impenetrable themes… Peter Schjeldahl in “The New Yorker” goes further, deconstructing –trying to demolish- Jasper Johns’ myth. Questioning his greatness might be the latest efford in “the cause against Jasper Johns”.
I will not, in the opposite, curb my enthusiasm towards these highly enjoyable, superb creations presented at Matthew Marks as “Catenary”- they represent a flux of admirable energy and artistry, an extraordinary and necessary cure against certain personal disappointments with Jasper Johns’ work (at the Walker Art Center’s last exhibition of his art, at the MoMA’s “Bushbaby” new acquisition).
Predictably, everyone has focused on the troubling intellect and hidden motifs of Jasper Johns paintings. Amazingly, nobody seems to have focused on the emotional appeal of the “Catenary” series. Like a gathering of critics trapped in “The Exterminating Angel” salon, they all appear to be afraid of getting out of their common headlines.
Wouldn’t they forget about what Jasper Johns is concealing under layers of painting and simply let themselves be free, getting blown away by the calmly tense strength, color forces and challenging nuances of these canvases, drawings and prints?
Sometimes, I would say, dealing with the task of “Being an Art Critic” seems to have a burdensome cost on our ability to see and feel.
How free are we to capture Jasper Johns?
