Jasper Johns quotes - page 2

Like drawing a straight line – you draw a straight line and it's crooked and you draw another straight line on top of it and it's crooked a different way and then you draw another one and eventually you have a very rich thing on your hands which is not a straight line. If you can do that the it seems to me you are doing more than most people. The thing is, it is very difficult to know oneself whether one is doing that or not, whether you mean what you do; and there is the other problem of the way you do it and whether sometimes you do more than you mean or you do less than you mean. It's very good if you can establish a language where it's clear that that is what you are doing – that you do what you mean to do. (Jasper Johns)
Shake (shift) parts of some of the letters in Voice (2). A-not-complete-unit, or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together. One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of "thought". It is not the "thought" which needs showing... It is not interesting and should not be shown (to be) as interesting that the parts can be shifted. It was always true that they can be shifted. 'Duchamp's ironing board.' View quote
Jasper Johns
An invisible drawing made in the air. Make a drawing behind your back. Make a stolen painting. View quote
Jasper Johns
Cubism is an anatomical chart of a way of seeing external objects. But I want to confuse the meaning of the act of looking. View quote
Jasper Johns
The relationship between the object & the event. Can they 2 be separated? Is one a detail of the other? What is the meeting? Air? View quote
Jasper Johns
I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds. View quote
Jasper Johns
[to see the painting].. as an object, as a real thing in itself. (quote on his Flag-paintings) View quote
Jasper Johns
I have attempted to develop my thinking in such a way that the work I've done is not me – not to confuse my feelings with what I produced. I didn't want my work to be an exposure of my feelings. Abstract Expressionism was so lively – personal identity and painting were more or less the same, and I tried to operate the same way. But I found I couldn't do anything that would be identical with my feelings. So I worked in such a way that I could say that it's not me. That accounts for the separation. View quote
Jasper Johns
Once, I made a kind of sculpture of a flag in bronze: it was an edition of three, I think. One of them was given on some occasion to President Kennedy. I became very upset that this was happening. It was given on Flag Day! (he laughs). It seemed to me to be such a terrible thing to happen. I complained bitterly to my very good friend John Cage, [the composer]. He said: "Don't let it worry you. Just consider it as a pun on your work." View quote
Jasper Johns
Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. View quote
Jasper Johns
As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion. (Jasper Johns)
I am not strong on perfection. View quote
Jasper Johns
One works without thinking how to work. View quote
Jasper Johns
I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea. View quote
Jasper Johns
I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason. View quote
Jasper Johns
Intention involves such a small fragment of our consciousness and of our mind and of our life. View quote
Jasper Johns
Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that. View quote
Jasper Johns
My primary concern is visual form. The visual meaning may be discovered afterwards – by those who look for it. Two meanings have been ascribed to these American Flag paintings of mine. One position is: 'He's painted a flag so you don't have to think of it as a flag but only as a painting'. The other is: 'You are enabled by the way he has painted it to see it as a flag and not as a painting. View quote
Jasper Johns
The Watchman falls "into" the trap of looking. The "spy" is a different person.... The spy must be ready to "move", must be aware of his entrances and exits. The watchman leaves his job & takes away no information. The spy must remember & must remember himself & his remembering. The spy designs himself to be overlooked. The watchman "serves" as a warning. Will the spy & the watchman ever meet? In a painting named SPY, will he be present? The spy stations himself to observe the watchman. If the spy is a foreign object, why is the eye not irritated? Is he invisible? When the spy irritates, we try to remove him. "Not spying, just looking" View quote
Jasper Johns
I am just trying to find a way to make pictures. View quote
Jasper Johns
I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement. (Jasper Johns)
Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that. View quote
Jasper Johns
Whatever I do seems artificial and false, to me. View quote
Jasper Johns
To do a drawing for a painting most often means doing something very sketchy and schematic and then later making it polished. View quote
Jasper Johns
One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space. View quote
Jasper Johns