Anodyne
Sunday, July 16, 2006
 

Jasper Johns, Ventriloquist, 1983

I like Johns' signature trick of "taping" favorite objects onto paintings, seen to good effect here. Also his numerous reverals and cascading series of manipulations of the picture plane. In order: the Barnett Newman print at upper right, reversed as if in a mirror; the green and orange optically reversed "double monoprint" of the U.S. flag at center; its optically correct twin at center left; the floating George Ohr pots hovering restlessly above Barry Moser's Moby-Dick; strips of beige encaustic "masking tape"; and finally, the painted nail at center right -- which I think Johns borrowed from Zuberan -- that throws the relationship of all these layered surfaces into chaos. Note, too, the trompe-l'oeil hinges dividing the "Barry Moser" side of the picture from the "Barnett Newman" side, their implication that the solid canvas could fold back on itself like a piece of paper.
- posted by cjb @ 11:23 AM


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