Jasper Johns Quotes - Page 2

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• 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.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Ideas, World

  "Trend to the Anti-Art: Targets and Flags". Newsweek 51 no. 13, p. 96, March 1958.

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• My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences. I guess, in painting, it would amount to different kinds of space being represented in it.

  Jasper Johns

  Differences, Space, Different

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• There was very little art in my childhood. 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.

  Jasper Johns

  Art, Museums, Childhood

  "Master of few words". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. July 26, 2004.

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• One's range [of ideas] is limited by one's interests and imagination and by one's passion.

  Jasper Johns

  Passion, Ideas, Imagination

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• In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in.

  Jasper Johns

  Art, Children, Thinking

  "Jasper Johns: Ideas In Paint, About the Painter". "American Masters", www.pbs.org. March 28, 2008.

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• I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Suggestions, Finals

  Jasper Johns, Museum of Modern Art (Oxford, England) (1974). “Jasper Johns: drawings”

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• I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Painting, Should

  Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns (1996). “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective”

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• Cubism is an anatomical chart of a way of seeing external objects. But I want to confuse the meaning of the act of looking.

  Jasper Johns

  Want, Way, Cubism

  "Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews". Book edited by Kirk Varnedoe and Christel Hollevoet, 1996.

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• Intention involves such a small fragment of our consciousness and of our mind and of our life.

  Jasper Johns

  Mind, Consciousness, Intention

  Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns (1996). “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective”

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• A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator.

  Jasper Johns

  Looks, Way, Ought

  "His heart belong to DADA". Time, May 04, 1959.

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• I tend to like things that already exist.

  Jasper Johns

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• Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions.

  Jasper Johns

  Ideas, Different, Painting

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• Everybody is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another.

  Jasper Johns

  Thinking, Way, Courses

  'Cy Twombly' photo-exhibition, museum Marseille Amsterdam, Autumn 2008.

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• I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts.

  Jasper Johns

  Know How, Knows

  "Master of few words". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. July 26, 2004.

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• One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.

  Jasper Johns

  World, Want, Courses

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• Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old.

  Jasper Johns

  Art, Criticism, Offers

  Jasper Johns, Hans Namuth (1992). “Jasper Johns: gravures et dessins de la collection Castelli, 1960-1991 : portraits de l'artiste par Hans Namuth, 1962-1989 : Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles, Palais de Luppé, 4 juillet-30 septembre 1992”

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• I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.

  Jasper Johns

  Remove, Decided, Ifs

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• That’s what painting does; it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain other things not be paid attention to. It functions in that way to a certain extent in our civilization.

  Jasper Johns

  Civilization, Vision, Doe

  "New Again: Jasper Johns". Interview with Philip Smith, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 9, 2015.

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• I would like to have insights into things like government, all those big ideas that you brought up that I simply don't have ideas about. I would like to be able to since so many people discuss them, but I don't want to work at them. I don't think my ambition is that strong in that direction.

  Jasper Johns

  Strong, Ambition, Thinking

  "New Again: Jasper Johns". Interview with Philip Smith, www.interviewmagazine.com. June 9, 2015.

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• Generally, I am opposed to painting which is concerned with conceptions of simplicity. Everything looks busy to me.

  Jasper Johns

  Simplicity, Looks, Painting

  Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns (1996). “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective”

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• 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 "thought" which needs showing.

  Jasper Johns

  Ideas, Together, Needs

  Richard Francis, Jasper Johns (1984). “Jasper Johns”, Abbeville Pr

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• To do a drawing for a painting most often means doing something very sketchy and schematic and then later making it polished.

  Jasper Johns

  Mean, Drawing, Painting

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• The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another.

  Jasper Johns

  Believe, Rooms, Way

  "Master of few words". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. July 26, 2004.

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• To me, self-description is a calamity.

  Jasper Johns

  Self Esteem, Self, Description

  "What Does a Jasper Johns Flag Stand For?" by John Seed, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 2, 2017.

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• I love drawings, so I've always enjoyed making drawings that exist on their own.

  Jasper Johns

  Drawing, Love Drawings, Enjoyed

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