By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
You don’t have to head to New York City to see the work of iconic American painter and printmaker Jasper Johns. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is set to open an exhibition of his prints only a couple of days after New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art opens its exhibit of Johns’ paintings.
“An Art of Changes: Jasper John Prints, 1960-2018,” will be on display at the GRAM from Oct. 2 through Jan. 8. The exhibition surveys six decades of Johns’ practice of printmaking through a selection of about 90 works in a wide range of techniques.
“‘An Art of Changes’ is one of the most beautiful exhibitions I have seen at GRAM,” said GRAM Chief Curator Ron Platt. “Making prints was just as important to Johns as making paintings, and over his long career he mastered the full range of printmaking processes and materials. Johns is rightly known as a deep thinker, but this exhibition proves how much he also loved working with different materials and processes to create works that dazzle the eye.”
Johns, who at the age of 91 continues to work at his Connecticut studio, became well known for his American flag and targets. In 1958, Johns had the opportunity for a solo exhibition at the famed Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City, where the Museum of Modern Art purchased three of his pieces, according the artist’s bio.
“The truth is sometimes scorned but it is that one night I dreamed I painted a large American flag and the next day I got up and went out and bought materials to begin it,” Johns said in an interview about his art.
Always more focused on the process of art, Johns transitioned to print making with his first print, a lithography of a target, released in 1960. Since then, he has reworked many of his paintings in print form using strategies and techniques such as fragmenting, doubling, reversing, and varying scale or color. To date, Johns has created more than 350 prints in intaglio, lithography, wood and linoleum cut, screen printing, lead relief, and blind embossing.
The exhibition follows Johns’ deep fascination with printmaking and is organized in four thematic sections: “Signs & Systems,” “In the Studio,“ “Surfaces,” and “Traces.” Viewers will see examples of the artist’s recognizable flags, targets, and numerals as well as images that incorporate the tools, materials, and techniques of mark-making; abstract works derived from images of flagstones and hatch marks; and more recent works that teem with autobiographical and personal imagery.
The GRAM is located at 101 Monroe Ave. NW. For museum hours and admission, visit ArtMuseumGR.org or call 616-831-1000.
