Jasper Johns in his studio, 1962. Photo: Hans Namuth. Courtesy Universal Limited Art Editions.
When Jasper Johns’s paintings debuted in 1958, they brought him instant acclaim and established him as a critical link between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. In the following six decades, his mastery of multiple media and fascination with reinventing his own works have secured his place in the contemporary art canon.
Drawing from the Walker Art Center’s complete archive of Johns’s prints, An Art of Changes: Jasper Johns Prints, 1960–2018 presents over 90 works organized into four thematic, roughly chronological sections. An Art of Changes traces shifts in subject, material, and mood as Johns revises and recycles key motifs over time. The exhibition begins with Johns’s early works, which feature the familiar flags and targets, and ends with some of his later, more personal and melancholic works.
“Johns reinvented the medium of printmaking in the 1960s and 1970s and since he has continually used it to reinvent himself as an artist,” says Eric Crosby, Carnegie Museum of Art’s Henry J. Heinz II Acting Director and Richard Armstrong Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “This exhibition will be nothing short of a master class in visual creativity.”
Visitors are invited to join daily docent-led Art Chats in the exhibition, beginning October 13. CMOA also hosts Thursday evening and weekend tours of An Art of Changes, all free with admission.
Carnegie Museum of Art is the premiering venue for this major touring exhibition, which is organized by the Walker Art Center.
For more information, visit cmoa.org/jasper-johns.
