Figuring Jasper Johns (Essays in Art and Culture) - Softcover

Orton, Fred

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0948462582 ISBN 13: 9780948462580

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2002

Synopsis

The author begins this challenging monograph by probing Modernism's surfaces and subjects, its public and private meanings, in order to establish Johns's importance as the modern allegorical artist in the years after Abstract Expressionism. Yet, Figuring Jasper Johns is not an essay that presumes to offer an instant interpretation. Rather, Fred Orton self-consciously constructs a "Jasper Johns" whose work is introduced and explained in three chapters, each of which addresses a specific picture or sculpture like Flag, Painted Bronze (Savarin) and Untitled 1992. These in-depth studies situate individual works in their social context as well as in Johns's oeuvre.

Fred Orton's purpose is to get to terms with – and find terms for – a difficult and elusive body of work by one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

About this title

About the Author:

Fred Orton is Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Leeds, UK, and has held visiting appointments at the State University of New York, College at Cortland, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Texas, Austin.

Review:

Fred Orton writes on Jasper Johns with clarity as well as conviction...If Orton engages you with the play of words and concepts, he is equally adept at drawing you close into Johns' paintings...With equal authority, Orton analyzes the critical distinction, as articulated by Johns himself, between the actual and the figured. (Richard Shiff ArtForum)

A significant contribution to the large body of literature about one of the more provocative and enigmatic artists of the mid- and late-twentieth century. (Michael J. Prokopow Boston Book Review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0948462582
• ISBN 13: 9780948462580
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248