内容説明
Fusing criticism and biography, this work offers insight into the life and work of America's pre-eminent living artist. Assigned to write a review of Jasper Johns's "The Seasons", a series of paintings that would be acclaimed at the 1988 Venice Biennale, Jill Johnston became intrigued by a mysterious detail in each of these paintings which is designed to look like a jigsaw puzzle piece. She found the source of this detail in Grunewald's 16th-century masterpiece, the "Isenheim Alterpiece" and it was this image, of a grotesquely diseased and dying man, that helped Johnston unlock an autobiographical core in Johns's work. Whereas most critics have been impressed by the formal qualities of Johns's paintings, Johnston discovers riches of personal meaning throughout his art. She charts the evolution of Johns's artistic, personal and public identities, from his family roots in South Carolina though to the early 1950s when Johns, together with Rauschenberg, Cunningham and Cage, overturned assumtions about modern art, dance, music and theatre. She interviewed many figures associated with Johns and had several enigmatic encounters with Johns himself.
Amazon.com
An artist's private life is often reflected in his work. Frequently the private is made public, and often this connection makes the work more accessible and interesting. Critic Jill Johnston has taken on the task of exploring the life and work of Jasper Johns--that most private of contemporary artists--and has succeeded brilliantly. Johnston is not simply out to reveal Johns's gayness but to explore how his sexuality has shaped his life and work. Johnston's critical eye is unwavering, her ability to delineate political and social contexts is unnervingly on-target. The fact that Johns resisted Johnston's efforts at biography gives the book an underlying tension making it even more fascinating.
Jasper Johns: Privileged Information is a fine, intelligent work of biography and criticism.
