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SITE FOR POSTING CLASS READING RESPONSES AS COMMENTS. FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ON OTHER POSTS. History of Art, U.C. Berkeley. Instructor Sarah Hamill
FUR-LINED CUP, MERET OPPENHEIM, 1936
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- Minimalism: For Class 3/31
- Warhol and Pop: For Class 3/19
- Johns, Rauschenberg, Frank: For Class 3/17
- Abstract Expressionism: For Class 3/12
- Modernist Sculpture: For Class 3/5
- Surrealism and Gender: For Class 2/19
- Modernism and Mass Culture: For Class 3/3
- Modern Objects and Things: For Class 2/10
- Primitivism: For class 2/5
- Cezanne and after: For Class 2/3
- Impressionism and Science: For class 1/29
- Response #3
- Kathryn A. Tuma
- What is Analysis? For class 1/27
- Octave Tassaert’s ‘Ne fais pas la cruelle!’ (Don’t...
- Defining the Modern: for class January 22
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January
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Kelly Sun
ReplyDeleteHAR1B Section 6
March 15, 2009
Through the interview with Jasper Johns, it is clear that he did not desire to be associated with modernism. He criticizes artwork that is created with the intention of making a statement. He believes that art is an evolving process and that it should not try to make a statement from the very beginning. Those that attempt to make a statement fail to address any issues at all.
Johns seeks to explain his unique approach to creating art. Rather than preconceiving the statement, subject, and overall aesthetics of a painting, the artist should just begin with a few simple forms and let the painting evolve over time. The painting becomes a representation of a period in one’s life in which the painter labors over it, adding and taking away from it. The creation of the painting is an experience – one that is distinctly different from the experience of looking at it.
While being interviewed by David Sylvester, Johns essentially strayed from giving any of his artwork permanent definitions or allowing them to conform to modernist ideals. Sylvester points out that much of Johns work look as if they are making references. Johns responds that it is likely the painting is making suggestions, but he did not plan any of these suggestions. He says if he were to plan references and insert them into his artwork, they would be artificial and weak. Johns desires for viewers to not label his paintings with a specific mood. His paintings are not meant to be looked at with any “constricted viewpoint.” In addition, his artwork is not created with the intention of serving aesthetic purposes. He does not create with the audience in mind. The only statement that is definite in the painting is that it is complete and “helpless.” The painting is a result of an exhaustive amount of work that ultimately has an end. Johns makes it sound as if the painting has a life of its own – an energy that grows and eventually results in a final climax. The painter seems to be at the service of the painting – helpless and being pulled along by the energy of the painting.
What I found amusing about the interview is that Johns always seems to stray from giving the answer Sylvester seeks. Johns is vague and does not want to conform his style to any modernist norm. Even when Sylvester makes the comment that Johns’ paintings show that nothing is meant to be pinned down, Johns admits that he does not want his approach to artwork to be defined in any way.
Julia Herron
ReplyDeleteReading Response for 3/19/09
Jasper Johns’ paintings incorporated classical icons made from a range of materials that provoked the viewer and were “shockingly literal”. His painting “Flag” challenges the idea of America and provokes the viewer to think of familiar associations with the painting. Unlike Modern artists, Johns does not claim that his work is unique or individual to himself. He claimed to refuse “any semblance of invention or originality” because the image of the American flag is easily created and is not a new shape. Johns was modest and said of his painting that its subject came to him in a dream and that “it’s in sort of bad shape; it tends to fall to pieces”. He believed that any artwork that had preconceived goals would inevitably fail. Johns cared little for the aesthetic beauty of his work, preferring to see his art as compartmentable and having its own unique message. Johns’ paintings have the “ability to generate visual and intellectual impact from nonaesthetic sources”. This seems counterintuitive, that a painting can create impact from aspects that are not visual. But Johns’ use of multiple mediums, namely newspaper clippings and wax drippings means the viewer must also deconstruct the physical elements of the painting in order to understand its meaning.
Robert Frank’s photographs depict an outsider’s view of American society by being unapologetically realistic. Frank was not afraid of depicting “everything-ness” and “American-ness” rather than a beautiful landscape or a stylized portrait. The faces in his photographs “don’t editorialize or criticize or say anything but ‘This is the way we are in real life’”. Frank used money from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to travel through all 50 states, documenting reality and all its hidden shadows. Unlike Modernist photographers, Frank did not attempt to put himself in his photographs, and his photos lack the self-consciousness of Modern photos.
Johns challenged the conception that an artist’s intent must dominate the conception and creation of a painting, choosing instead to paint reproducible, provocative subjects. Frank abandoned the aesthetic goals of Modern photography, instead photographing reality in a freshly intentioned way.
Erik Narhi
ReplyDeleteHAR1B
3/18/09
Jasper Johns supported art in which the individual was removed from the work, a direct contrast to previous painters such as Jackson Pollock who created “trademarks” of their own with their artistic styles. While these Pollocks and other works present a pure visual symbol of the artist’s personal creation, Johns created art that portrayed no individual presence, instead revealing compositions of common symbols, reminiscent of the pop-art movement, presented in such a manner that the role of individual was replaced by the icon. His paintings are impressive solely by their presentation in a realm that we assume signifies importance, an art gallery. As Rosenblaum notes, “outside art galleries [Jasper’s images] evoke nonesthetic reactions.”The paintings create art out of the commonplace rather than the extraordinary.
Johns likewise opposed the common modernist practice of portraying subject matter to convey an abstracted idea or concept. Instead, he created literal representations of his mundane subject matter, free of any and all judgment. The process of intrinsic though is removed his art altogether—the paintings are icons and nothing more. Once again, he opposes the notions of modernist painters, favoring minimal thought and maximal representation, whereas the modernists in general seemed drawn to portrayals of objects through thought and representation of these thoughts, rather than literal subject representation. This overzealous presence of thought in the modernists work implies individual presence, since we each have unique thought processes, and the modernists essentially proclaim their thought process as “better” by putting forward their work as masterpieces. Clearly, this contrasts with Johns’ removal of the thought process, wherein he wholly separated his individual abilities and thoughts, substituting them with purified iconography of objects, not individuals.
Johns seems indifferent towards the actual experiential quality of his works. He focuses on the clear icon, avoiding directly addressing the issue of mood and experience for viewers. In his answers in the interview with David Sylvester, it is clear that he has no deliberate notions of viewer experience. He repeatedly portrays his paintings’ effects as unintentional products of various uncontrollable external variables, and even goes so far as to say that he finishes one painting, and then leaves it, as if he were no longer associated with it any longer. In describing his own work, it is as though Johns neither knows nor cares about his own intentions. He thereby emphasizes, once again, that these are representations of commonplace icons, used as a jumping off point for his art, that are portrayed literally.
Brendan Cronshaw
ReplyDeleteHA R1B Section 6
Response 11
3.18.09
Jasper Johns as well as Robert Frank both seem to believe and assert that their work is not modernist (although not explicitly) and that it is in fact made without previously planned goals.
Robert Frank’s photographs, when compared to those of Walker Evans, seem very opposed to modernist ideals. Leslie Baier lays out for us plainly that Evans “[demonstrated] growing interest in revealing the ways in which people consciously, through attire, and unconsciously, through posture and expression, present themselves to the public” (524), while Frank goes for a less controlled approach in “creat[ing] images whose power stems from their combination of deliberate irony and unsettling mystery” (524).
Although we have not discussed much photography in class, it is clear from Baier’s essay that Frank left his subjects as they were, not interacting with them, so as to make “the viewer…ill at ease” (525). He did this by not controlling what they did or where or even how they looked, and let all of this increase in mystery so as to perplex and confound the viewer. What is clear is that he was photography America and its citizens as they were, with no regard for making them appear greater or lesser than they actually were. Frank wasn’t going for a specific meaning in his work necessarily, nor for an ulterior goal or end. He simply wanted to represent Americans and show them as they were, not disturbed in any way.
Moving on the Jasper Johns and his Flag, he immediately establishes in his interview with David Sylvester that the mood in his paintings “has evolved, because [he’s] not interested in any particular mood” (539) and that he would rather it be “the mood of keeping your eyes open and looking, without any focusing, without any constricted viewpoint” (539). Johns’s response to Sylvester’s questions seem quite apathetic in that he gives one the feeling that he doesn’t really care that much and disagrees seemingly just to disagree. However he makes it clear that his painting is really just an object that he created, from start to finish, and is something that doesn’t really have much of a meaning. He also makes it readily apparent that there are no motives or ideas that he is necessarily trying to convey in the piece. Johns contends “the processes involved in the painting are of greater certainty and of…greater meaning, than the referential aspects of the painting” (540). So it seems that to him the painting itself as a representational object is less meaningful than the physically making of it. Thus both Johns and Franks stray away from and refute modernism by excluding built-in meanings and representations into their works, and rather just presenting them as is.
From my understanding, modernism focuses on originality and being different; modernism is centered on straying away from the past and representing definition and beauty. With this knowledge, as I read the assigned readings, I have come to realize that Frank and Johns repudiate, or rejects, modernism in discreet ways.
ReplyDeleteIt was slightly difficult for me to pinpoint the way in which Frank exactly rejected modernism. Given that I am required to come up with a claim, I must say that Frank clearly rejected modernism through his style. Frank was a photographer who acquired his technique from another artist, named Evans. Furthermore, the text states that Frank explored many of the themes that had previously fascinated Evans, (524). In this way, Frank does not embrace originality, and he therefore rejects modernism. In addition, the text suggests that Frank leaves a little bit of imagined space between the viewer and the scene. Thus, Frank intentionally lacks definition, which links back to the notion of rejecting modernism in that modernism serves the purpose of portraying given direct images.
Yet, as for Johns, it was a little bit easier to identify the way in which he strayed away from modernism—it as stated that he had a general refusal to the appearance of originality, (534). Johns’ -Flag- was constantly questioned: “Is it a flag or a painting,” (534). In this way, Johns left room for his artwork to be deliberated upon. This rejects modernism in that it lacks definition and instead forces its viewer to think. In addition, Johns never attempted to clarify the questions that were being raised, ultimately suggesting that he liked the aspect of uncertainty in his artwork. Furthermore, Johns' -Flag- was labeled as “non-aesthetic”, (535), which proclaims that Johns wandered away from the depiction of beauty. Last but not least, the text describes that Johns' -Flag- was a part of his an “involuntary response”, (536), and his unconscious in that it came directly from a dream. In this way, he lacks the desired purpose that arises in modernism.
What I find ironic is that I would have had an easier time relating Johns’ -Flag- to modernism. Given that -Flag- shows how it was made and attempts to stray away from the norm (as it can’t be readily identified as a collage or a painting), I believe it has some “modernism qualities” as well.
NOTE: I wrote the title of Johns’ work as -Flag- because this blog does not allow me to italicize.
Michael Dreibelbis
ReplyDeleteHOAR1B
Response Essay 10
I think it is safe to say that Jasper Johns was far removed from the modernist movement that was happening around him in painting. Johns believes that his paintings should not have one interpretation, something that modern art had embraced, but Johns rejects that there must be some form or idea that the painting must have. In his opinion, when referencing his Flag, he stated that: “it is no more about a flag than it is a bout a [single] brushstroke.” I find it interesting that he would associate the whole image on a grand scale to be the same as the individual components of which it was made. Modernism was moving away from analyzing individual components and rather looking at the whole.
With the idea of modernism in this time period, there also comes the idea of expressionism. Johns disagrees with this sentiment as well. He believes that the message a finished product reveals is far different than the message artist may have intended. Johns says that started paintings with a preconceived notion of the messages it will deliver are never a good way to paint, and usually ends up failing in the end. Johns would rather that the painting should be allowed to give whatever message it does in the end, regardless of the intention in the beginning. He goes on to talk about how the finished product is different from the empty canvas, therefore can’t have the same intentions after being changed into the painting.
Lastly Johns is against the notion that art has a specific intention. He believes that the individual should experience it, and make his/her own interpretation of the artwork. He believes in art as “being” instead of “saying” something, and that the being is not something static. That being would be something for the individual, and that may differ from the artist, who experienced the work’s creation, and the viewer, who is seeing it for the first time.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDanielle Beeve
ReplyDeleteHistory of Art R1B
Section 6
Jasper Johns, in his interview with David Sylvester, indicated his divergence from any association with modernism through his thoughts on the painting process itself. Modern artists could be thought of as having a tendency towards abstraction; towards generalization of a complex concept into the parts that are most important to the artist (Wiki). Some of these modern artists then were trying to create art that was a sort of abstraction of some kind of idea. Johns absolutely rejects the concept of intentionally creating art that is supposed to mean something when you start out, rather he believes you should just create and then meaning will come out of it after you have finished:
I think as a painter…that, when you begin to work with the idea of suggesting, say, a particular psychological state of affairs, you have eliminated so much from the process of painting that you make an artificial statement which is, I think, not desirable. I think one has to work with everything and accept the kind of statement which results as unavoidable, or as a helpless situation. I think that most art which begins to make a statement fails to make a statement because the methods used are too schematic or too artificial…The final statement has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement (540).
Johns is basically saying that he thinks that a message, or “statement”, will come out of the painting, but it should not be put there intentionally or it will lose any and all meaning. The statement that comes out will be unavoidable but also should be unexpected on the part of the painter. This differs from modernity in that modern artists were intentionally drawing attention to things, such as the material the work was created from, in order to make a point. Johns would disagree with this ideology.
Robert Franks also rejects the abstractionism inherent in modern art, but in a much more appreciable manner. Franks photos in his suite entitled The Americans are depictions of the true realities of the existences of many people across the country. Many of them are harsh and provoking and not in the least bit abstracting. The faces in Frank’s photographs, as described by Jack Kerouac, “don’t editorialize or criticize or say anything but ‘This is the way we are in real life and if you don’t like it I don’t know anything about it ‘cause I’m living my own life my way’” (518). The people in these photographs are represented as very true to themselves, there is no artifice or showmanship in them. Frank is not giving us a message with these pictures, but he is letting them speak for themselves on the meaning of what it truly is to be an American without any romantic ideals attached. Kerouac exclaims in his passage “The humor, the sadness, the EVERYTHING-ness and American-ness of these pictures!” (517). Frank’s pictures show us alternate realities; they are true stories of people we will never meet.
The work of Jasper Johns deals mostly with appropriation. In all his “Flag” paintings, the question of “Why turn the American flag into a painting? Why turn a painting into an American flag? (Wagner)” constantly rise up. His incorporation of such a classical and political image is provoking. But unlike modern artists, Johns does not claim an individual tie to these paintings. He consistently denies that he had a vision or blueprint for his American flag painting and instead came up with the idea when it entered his dream. To me, this is how Johns repudiates modernism. He strays away from artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock who all have personal and unique connections with their paintings. Rothko and Pollock do not credit the creation of their artwork to a dream; instead they credit their paintings to their emotions and feelings. Johns’ constant denial that there is a deeper purpose behind his selection of the flag then goes on to deal with the idea of redefining the context. Why does he choose the flag and how does he go on to redefine it throughout his artwork so he isn’t simply stealing a classic icon?
ReplyDeleteMany photographers, especially Walker Evans, were Robert Frank’s source of inspiration. He like Johns dealt a lot with the theme of appropriation in his artwork. He would take ideas and concepts from Evans and replant them in his own terms. He rejects the concept of modernism through his redefining of photography. Modern photography dealt much with the presence and unification of the subject. Evan’s photographs especially presented “themselves as self-contained, inclusive, and whole. (Baier)” His photographs in “American Photographs, Let us Now Praise Famous Men” displayed “full-length figures, and heads whose ties to the convention of the portrait bust encourage us to view them as self-sufficient.” When “looking at Evans’ work, one is rarely aware of or interested in what may have been taking place outside of the camera’s field of vision.” Frank repudiates this theme of self-sufficient portraits. Instead, he strays from the modernistic photographic approach and “explicitly and repeatedly draws attention to the fragmentary nature of his images.” (Baier) They lack this unity and self-containment found in Evan’s photographs and instead promote the viewer to think of what is happening outside of the frame. The skewed structuring of his portraits represents the alienation and distraction in the world around him.
While both artists approached their artwork with the theme of appropriation in mind, they reject modernism in different ways. Johns rejects it by claiming his thought process was actually whimsical; from a dream. Frank rejects it by straying from the modern, self-sufficient portraits. He purposefully emphasizes the fragmented space within his photographs in order to represent the distance held within society.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFelby Chen
ReplyDeleteHA R1B
Section 6
Jasper Johns repudiates modernism by letting the picture form itself during its process of getting painted, rather than letting the picture speak for itself through its end product. While modernism is focused on pushing away from the traditional and building on the past, Johns’ artwork is often “interpreted as a sustained meditation on meaning, [on] its construction and its elusiveness” (737), focused more on the experience. With such emphasis on the experience, Johns is at times “conscious of making a mark to alter what seems to [him] the primary concern of the painting, to force it to be different, to strengthen, to weaken, in purely academic terms” (738). After all, Johns believes the process of creating a painting is the experience through which the artwork is felt, and if he has power over that process, then he should use that power to his advantage. Johns is not very interested in portraying the metropolitan life; rather, he would like to get in touch with mood and feeling. Johns, in his interview with David Sylvester, states that he “think[s] in [his] paintings [mood] evolve[s], because [he is] not interested in any particular mood” (739), but rather the transformation of these moods. He lets the mood take control and evolve as it pleases, portraying this experience through the way he creates his artwork. Eventually, the paintings “take on a particular characteristic” (739), as the evolution of the mood ends when the painting is finished. The energy put into creating the painting, in due course, “run[s] out [when] the form tends to be accomplished or finalized” (739), for the process in creating a painting does not go on infinitively. Johns repudiates modernism by “putting the paint to use [and by] taking the painting as something which exists” (741). Modernism does not do this; modernistic paintings are defined and analyzed by their end products. Johns’ style “resembles life”, with the painting “formed as it is made”, letting the paint take its course.
Just like Jasper Johns focuses on the process rather than the result of a painting, Robert Frank repudiates modernism in a similar way. Through his detailed, step-by-step process of creating art, one is guided through the experiences in each of his creations. Frank is does not mind the final product; instead he wants the viewer to see the means he uses to reach his final product.
Jenny Zhang
ReplyDeleteHA R1B Section 6
Reading Response #11
Modern art, in my opinion, is an art or sculpture that is abstract with emphasis placed more the artist’s technique and choice of materials in creating the art work. What I mean by describing modernism as abstract is that the image or subject depicted on the art work is not a figural representation of a recognizable object. In fact, the image in the painting or sculpture is created to symbolism a message. Moreover, the artist has a set intention prior to beginning the art work. They need to have a goal to create the artwork. Although modern painter, Jackson Pollock describes that that he often loses his purpose for the painting because it develops a life of its own; however, he always has a basic sense of what he is about to paint before he begins. John Frank and Jasper Johns are similar in that both reject their work as being representation of modern art. While reading Jasper John’s interview with David Sylvester, I got the impression that he sounded very nonchalant. When Sylvester asks Johns about the reasons behind the technique of painting, the reason behind the choice of material and the meaning behind the work, John always respond with ambiguous answers. Often times, he will disagree with Sylvester’s interpretation of what he had previously said simply because he felt like it. In my opinion, he sounded quite arrogant throughout the interview. Through this interview, Johns reveals that his does not begin his painting with a statement in mind nor does he paint for an audience. In one of his quotes, he says that he “generally…is not concerned with that sort of result. One goes about one’s business and does what one has to do and one’s energy run out” (539). Johns implies that painting to him is a personal experience in which he paints for himself only. The final product can take on any interpretation because he did not have a statement for it to begin with. In some ways, I feel like his pattern of painting of similar to Pollock’s in that both men start a painting, lose themselves in process and quits until they have finished the painting—at which time they can finally relax. To Johns, the material he uses the painting do not stand out more is less than the actual product. Both have a purpose and neither is more important that the other. This is another example of how John’s painting opposes modernist painting approaches in which the techniques or materials on the canvas is more emphasized than the subject. Or in other words, the material or technique means to have a statement, not necessarily the subject of the painting.
John Frank’s photography is also quite different from modernist painting because he captures images of America and its citizens as he sees them. He does not try to alter them in anyway. Unlike photography nowadays in which the quality of a photo is evaluated based on the numbers of pixels or color contrast, Frank believes that the image created is just as important. When he went on his road trip to all the states in America, he was not carrying a high quality camera because he has more focused on capturing the natural state of American citizens and lifestyle. The quality of many of his photos in The Americans is grainy and fuzzy. Although there are obvious symbolisms in his work, they are not positioned purposely to create a statement, it is just something that he noticed on the trip and noted it by capturing photography. I feel that although his photos look quite dull in quality, the subjects or images that he has captured leaves an impression in mind because they are incredibly realistic (realistic in the sense that these are photos of real people and daily events). In that sense, his work rejects modernism because he places more emphasis on the produced image (final product) than in the quality of the materials or a specific technique at which he takes photographs. In my opinion, his photos do not have definite statements and is subject to various interpretations. However, I do agree with Baier, that there are hints of irony in some of his photos and would like to add that there is also a sense of despair in his photos. It is likely, that the “despair” I perceived relates to the black and white quality of the pictures but I like it because it shows that reality is harsh and can just hit you (just as how his photo graphs are very confrontational—to the viewer).
In Jasper Johns interview with David Sylvester, Johns departs from the idea of not necessarily creating a statement, but making a deliberate statement. As he claims, “I think that most art which begins to make a statement fails to make a statement because the methods used are too schematic or too artificial. I think that one wants from painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement.”
ReplyDeleteJohns falls into a fine line in his definition that many artists, as well as almost all of society, struggle to come to grips with. He essentially is calling for art for the sake of art. It is not trying to refer to anything, to make a deliberate statement about something. It is in and of itself in his mind. Such an ideal is absolutely dangerous in its potential. It can lead to an absolutely revolutionary concept or lead to a pile of crap. It’s free in the sense that we imagine what free is like but cannot attain. That freedom is its biggest strength and largest weakness. Yet, as much as he wants to believe art is as such, it is almost useless if he is one of a few who can only see it as such. How can you convey something to someone who doesn’t understand it? I feel understand is the wrong word because anyone can understand something on a basic level and say they understand it. It’s a matter of embracing a concept as more than that. To embrace it as a philosophy, as a way of living. And if you have accepted it, then it wouldn’t even exist to you. Anne Wagner’s article proves Johns philosophy cannot be adhered to as the fundamental question of his painting is whether it is a flag or a painting (in my personal opinion it’s a painting, you don’t see anyone trying to hang one of his flag artworks to a flagpole to watch it wave in the wind. Even on that note, I don’t think that the painting can wave like a flag). They are pulling a statement out of the work that Johns had not intended. They are applying a societal circumstance to his piece in order to bring it to a level to which they feel they must understand it. They need it to have a meaning, a meaning underneath the surface. They simply just cannot accept that one does not exist and does not need to exist.
Johns’ struggle over meaning within art correlates to the main character of The Fountainhead Howard Roark. There is an emphasis on selflessness and creating not for a particular reason, but rather because it almost willed itself into existence. It almost is a sense of purity in that there is no exterior motive or influence. It’s scary to think what one can do with that ability, with that power. But then again, does it matter when all that potential falls upon deaf ears?
Bing Lin
ReplyDeleteModernism, as we have been reading, is about individualism, about abstraction, and about creating pure visual interpretations true to the mediums used. Jasper Johns, in creating “Flag”, repudiates modernism in several ways. First and foremost, the subject of “Flag”, the American flag, holds enough symbolism and representational quality in its own that counters the ideal abstraction of modernism. The American flag is such a symbolic icon that no individual presence can be seen and the design of the flag, as Johns states, “could be easily measured and transferred” (534), thus repudiating the originality that modernity demands. Also, while modernist works stay true to their mediums and one can easily determine whether a work is a painting or a sculpture, the iconic background of “Flag” leads to questions of whether it is a painting or a flag.
Johns also opposes the modernist ideals by representing the American flag as itself, rather than using other means of abstraction to illustrate or allude to the American flag. Though so many elements of collage are embedded in “Flag”, the outcome, each time that Johns creates the different versions of “Flag”, remains that the piece looks almost exactly like the American flag, with subtle differences here and there. What renders the “Flag” more than just a painting is the collage work of newspaper clippings, cartoons, images, words, and more that Johns embeds under the wax, allowing some to appear and others to remain hidden. He thus inserts politics and generates an intellectual impact that happens without the need for the modernist qualities.
David Sylvester’s interview of Jasper Johns also reveals Johns’ nonchalant attitude towards modernism and his insistence that his work was not to be made with particular characteristics or meant to be for aesthetic purposes. Johns separates artwork for viewers and artwork as an artist’s process, stating that “the experience of looking at a painting is different from the experience of planning or painting or of painting a painting”(540) and his attitude displays his indifference or detachment towards the viewers, explaining that “a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement” (541). Through these statements, we can see that Johns views his own paintings, especially as he repeatedly paints and creates the same flag times and times again, as commonplace icons for the everyday, not meant to trigger unique sensations. In contrast to the modernist belief of individuality and drawing with an intent to provoke certain emotions, Johns chooses to draw the same iconic image and could care less about what art appreciators or viewers speculate through or about his works.
In his interview with David Sylvester, Jasper John’s states, “I think that most art which begins to make a statement fails to make a statement because the methods used are too schematic or too artificial… The final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement.”(740) This logic, that message should be removed from painting, is the core of this interview. Additionally, this is characteristic of the entire Abstract Expressionist movement. Other artists who adopt this strategy are Frank, Rauschenberg, Rothko, Polluck, Warhol, etc. It seems that this acted, simultaneously, as a strategy to separate themselves from the modernist movement. However, when looking back, these artist simply continue the tradition of reinvention, characteristic of modernist art. Logically, this becomes the next step. Modernist work became more and more saturated with meaning as time went on. The antithesis of this is to create work without meaning, or meaning beyond the control of the artist. Yet, to do this creates a situation which intimately links abstract expressionism with modernism, and symbolizes the temporal progression of the movement. The interesting part of this strategy is the question of whether or not Johns actually does have a specific meaning or message in mind, and whether or not he suggests this. The reason these are important questions is because simply by stating in the interview with Sylvester that he has no intention, he is providing a certain amount of context and perhaps even specific direction for the viewer.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Robert Frank was guided by the Modernist work of Walker Evans, he sought to differentiate his work from these Modernist ideals. Franks stated, “You don’t photograph because you have a camera, you photograph because you have eyes and because you have something to say.”(524) However, Frank’s work also sought to embrace “chance as a formal element.”(524) In other words, Frank may have had somewhat of an authorial voice, yet in this sense, it amounts to nothing more than what he saw, as opposed to what he wished to portray. This is the spirit with which Frank repudiates Modernism.
Another situation, which comprises the work of both Robert Frank, and Jasper Johns, is that their work involves such broad and complex subjects that their meanings are necessarily elusive, and thus more powerful. Both artists depict American iconography, and either are attempting to comment or allow a viewer to ponder that what makes America, America. Wagner quotes Kerouac: These are the images in which, as Jack Kerouac wrote three years later, the “EVERYTHING-ness” of America is made visible-an everythingness based on difference, as Frank well knew.”(273) The interesting thing that arises from this situation is obligation. I personally wonder if both artists remain elusive when asked about meaning because they are compelled through social responsibilities or perhaps career and success promoting considerations. This question was brought to my mind because Baier’s article speaks of the outrage Frank’s photos caused due to the perceived attack on American patriotism. Do both artists, REALLY not have any authorial voice in their work?
THIS is officially the last sentence I will write for my U.C. Berkeley career.