Jasper Johns
07 May - 01 Jul 2011
JASPER JOHNS
New Sculpture and Works on Paper
7 May - 1 July, 2011
Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Jasper Johns: New Sculpture and Works on Paper, the next exhibition in his gallery at 522 West 22nd Street. The exhibition features nine sculptures completed over the past five years, which represent the largest body of work Johns has completed in his more than 50 year career. This will be Johns’ third one-person exhibition of recent work at the gallery since 2005.
The subject of the sculptures, with one exception, is Johns’ classic grid of the numerals 0 through 9. Johns makes the sculptures in wax first, working the surfaces in a complex pattern of textures, often adding collaged elements such as a key, impressions of newsprint, a cast of Merce Cunningham’s foot, or one of his own hand. He then casts them in bronze, aluminum, or silver and, finally, applies a unique patina to each.
One sculpture, a double-sided relief titled Fragment of a Letter, incorporates part of a letter from Vincent van Gogh to his friend, the artist Émile Bernard. Using blocks of type, Johns pressed the letters of van Gogh’s words into the wax. On the other side he spelled out the letter in the American Sign Language alphabet with stamps he made himself. Finally, he signed his name in the wax with his hands in sign language.
The exhibition also features a room of twenty recent works on paper, including a series of drawings and prints based on three small works Johns made early last year on Shrinky Dinks, a plastic made for children to draw on that shrinks approximately 60 percent when heated.
New Sculpture and Works on Paper
7 May - 1 July, 2011
Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Jasper Johns: New Sculpture and Works on Paper, the next exhibition in his gallery at 522 West 22nd Street. The exhibition features nine sculptures completed over the past five years, which represent the largest body of work Johns has completed in his more than 50 year career. This will be Johns’ third one-person exhibition of recent work at the gallery since 2005.
The subject of the sculptures, with one exception, is Johns’ classic grid of the numerals 0 through 9. Johns makes the sculptures in wax first, working the surfaces in a complex pattern of textures, often adding collaged elements such as a key, impressions of newsprint, a cast of Merce Cunningham’s foot, or one of his own hand. He then casts them in bronze, aluminum, or silver and, finally, applies a unique patina to each.
One sculpture, a double-sided relief titled Fragment of a Letter, incorporates part of a letter from Vincent van Gogh to his friend, the artist Émile Bernard. Using blocks of type, Johns pressed the letters of van Gogh’s words into the wax. On the other side he spelled out the letter in the American Sign Language alphabet with stamps he made himself. Finally, he signed his name in the wax with his hands in sign language.
The exhibition also features a room of twenty recent works on paper, including a series of drawings and prints based on three small works Johns made early last year on Shrinky Dinks, a plastic made for children to draw on that shrinks approximately 60 percent when heated.