Jasper Johns: Privileged Information. - book reviews

Given the already extensive literature about Jasper Johns's works it is hardly surprising that there are comparatively small in number revelations in either Jill Johnston's controversial fresh monograph, Privileged Information, or in the Museum of late Art's retrospective exhibition publications (understandably noncontroversial in nature, given the artist's status as a major collector, the pair of his own work and that of other artists, with the potential to provide any museum interested in present art with many key pieces).

For this occasion MOMA opt in enlightened fashion to address three different interest clusters with separate products. First, there is the standard, full-color, illustrated catalogue with essays by the agency of Kirk Varnedoe and Roberta Bernstein and, equally important, an extensive chronology by the agency of Lilian Tone. (As is usual with of that kind multi-author catalogues, this one lacks a serviceable index and thus frustrates the reader who attempts to twitch together comments on a particular make submissive from the catalogue's various sections.) The large chronology section is in keeping with the new trend in museum publications to stres factual information upon a par with interpretation, on the other hand it also effectively sets the MOMA catalogue apart from other available studies about John greatest in quantity of which address thematic or theoretical idiosyncrasies in his art through either interviewing the artist or by means of speculating about his possible intentions. Rich as it is, this chronological section is limited to information specifically related to John giving the impression that other art-world facts during his career are not part of his story. (Admittedly, the addition of parallel facts in other artists' careers could well have doubled the size of the text) The next to the first MOMA publication, an extensive anthology of Johns's words edited by the agency of Varnedoe and Christel Hollevoet, contains previous interviews with the artist as well as his possess writings. The third component of the MOMA budget is a complete Johns bibliography and exhibition history upon computer disk. In this format, of that kind cumbersome, but essential, information can be take counseled by researchers with electronic ease.

For the surprises that might enlarge the John literature, we will ne to await time to come studies, among them the however unpublished recollections of those lock opener players in the post-World War II art world with the opportunity and inclination to add to the record. Also still to be done are conservation studies of Johns's painted works. Quite a scarcely any of these are constructed from multiple parts, thus subtly straddling the border between conventional painting and plastic art without appearing to be combines (the more obvious hybrid genre exhibited by Johns's close colleague Robert Rauschenberg in the 1950s) single looks forward, as well, to a coming time consideration of Johns's works in filled historical context.

The MOMA catalogue, in discreet fashion, and Johnston's work with its more daring tone, are the couple essentially biographical in approach, indicating interconnections between Johns's private life and individual works or assemblages of works. In spite of Johnston's claim that Privileged Information provides an innovative approach to interpretation by dint of keying it to information about the artist's life, the biographical approach dates back at least to the middle of the 19th hundred when retrospective exhibitions and single-artist monographs were first introduced.

Psychobiography and psychoanalytic readings of works, of course, advance later. The genre may have taken its inspiration from the autobiographical writings of artists themselves -- for example, Gauguin's fantastical autobiographical true copy Noa-Noa, published in 1897. Since then, a number of major artists have used highly personal body s in Symbolist/Surrealist fashion to enrich interpretation of their works: greatest in quantity notably, Max Ernst ("Beyond Painting," 1937) and Salvador Dali (The hidden Life of Salvador Dali, 1942) the couple responding to Freud's widely read Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood, first published in 1910 by the agency of around 1960, Meyer Schapiro, Theodore Reff and others were producing biographical/psychoanalytical readings of works by dint of two of Johns's favorite masters, Cezanne and Picasso. by means of 1969 Arturo Schwarz had hypothesized that Marcel Duchamp (another favorite of Johns) was incestuously obsess with individual of his sisters. Many writers resist basing interpretation upon biographical materials, either because they faculty of perception that extra-personal issues are more important than an individual's private experiences, or, where contemporary art is be of importance toed they may feel constrained by dint of old-fashioned decorum or by the possibility that a living artist might debunk of that kind interpretations.(1) Nevertheless, since the '60 the list of of that kind psychobiographical studies has become enormous.

In his take again essays for the chronology section of the MOMA catalogue, Varnedoe points without that during the period 1961-63 and then again in the early '80 and after 1985 autobiographical respects are among the characteristics of Johns's art. Indeed, as Johnston stresse the alone one to deny the existence of of that kind allusions is Johns himself, who when asked in 1990 through Paul Taylor about autobiographical details in his novel works responded, "They're not particularly autobiographical. Where is the autobiography?"(2) Taking him to task for this remark, Johnston has added significantly to our knowledge of the painter's life and the obvious concerns to it in his works. She provides considerable background information about Johns's grandfather and stepgrandmother, with whom he worn out his early childhood -- information that is helpful for appreciating the meanings of works made after 1989 And she presents an explanation for what John called the "very gloomy" temper of his 1979-80 works by means of disclosing information provided by dancer Jim Self about his relationship with John which was shattered off at that time. Had Johnston not teat into these personal areas, it looks likely that -- given Johns's have visual and verbal disclosures -- someone other would eventually have seen a ne to do so