Jasper Johns

From 1947 to 1948, Jasper Johns was a student at the University of South Carolina. He then studied at a private art school in New York from 1949 to 1952. After graduating, he did his military service for two years. Among other things, he also came to Japan. From there he took inspiration for his later motifs. In 1952, like his friend, the painter Robert Rauschenberg, he was in New York and made contact with John Cage's circle. Johns initially painted in the style of Abstract Expressionism, which he turned away from in the mid-1950s. During this time he depicted banal everyday things such as cans or targets and thus turned them into art subjects. For example, he created works entitled "Flag on an Orange Background" (1959). They were often executed in oil or encaustic. The acquaintance of the gallery owner Leo Castelli brought the artist fame in the New York art scene.

During this time, his flag paintings were presented for the first time in a solo exhibition. He also made shooting targets, series of numbers and maps into art objects. The separation from Abstract Expressionism was thus complete. His flag paintings were unique in the art of painting. They brought the subject of the picture into line with the picture itself. This raised the question of the identity of picture and object in art theory, for the first time after Duchamp's work "Fountain", which was later taken up again by the conceptual artists. In 1958, three-dimensional works were created as assemblages that were put together from a combination of different objects. Here too the artist used oil paint or encaustic. In 1960, Johns also made light bulbs or tin cans into "Sculpmetals", which he cast in bronze and painted. The following year he was awarded the Carnegie Prize at the Pittsburgh Biennale.

In 1960 he began his first experiments with the technique of lithography. Jasper Johns traveled to Hawaii and Japan in 1964. This year he was also honored with the first prize at the Venice Biennale. More awards followed. His later work is based on Jackson Pollock's color webs and his "all-over paintings". The images are filled with color bundles of lines. The name comes from because this technique and design does not give the images a focal point. His importance as a painter is his pioneering role in Pop Art and Minimal Art. He used everyday things that he incorporated into his paintings and sculptures.

With his flag and target paintings, he not only stimulated art-theoretical discussions of identity, but also created truly cult images.

Jasper Johns has lived in New York and Saint-Martin since 1988.