Jasper Johns: Regrets, 2013. Oil on canvas. 127 x 182.9 cm. Collection of Marguerite Steed Hoffman © Jasper Johns / VAGA, New York / DACS, London 2017. Photo: © Jerry L. Thompson
Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ – the Royal Academy of Arts presents a landmark exhibition of the Honorary Royal Academician, Jasper Johns. 23 September – 10 December 2017.]]>
Source: Royal Academy of Arts
The exhibition will comprise over 150 works including sculpture, drawings and prints, together with new work from the artist. Johns is recognised as one of the most significant and influential artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the exhibition will span over 60 years from his early career, right up to the present time, bringing together artworks that rarely travel from international private and public collections. The title of the exhibition comes from a statement by Johns in 2008: ‘One hopes for something resembling truth, some sense of life, even of grace, to flicker, at least in the work.’
Widely known for his iconic images of flags, targets, numbers, maps and light bulbs, Johns has occupied a central position in American contemporary art since his arrival in New York in the 1950s. By 1955 his use of accessible and familiar motifs established a new vocabulary in painting. Johns’ treatment of iconography and the appropriation of objects and symbols made the familiar unfamiliar, achieving this through the distinctive, complex textures of his works. Through his ground-breaking paintings and sculptures, Johns established a decisive new direction in an art world that had previously been dominated by Abstract Expressionism.
Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ will reveal the continuities and changes that have occurred over the past six decades, and the curiosity and experimentation that Johns continues to apply to his current practice.
The exhibition will be arranged thematically, encompassing the full range of Johns’ materials, motifs and techniques including his unique use of encaustic (heated beeswax) and collage in paintings, and the innovations he has achieved in sculpture and the graphic arts by expanding the possibilities of traditional media. It will follow in the Royal Academy’s tradition of celebrating its Royal Academicians, continuing the strand of programming that has showcased some of the most significant living artists including Anish Kapoor, David Hockney, Anselm Kiefer and Ai Weiwei.
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Jasper Johns at the National Gallery (exhibition, 2007)
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