Jasper Johns: Regrets - (Hardcover)

About the Book

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 15-September 1, 2014.

Book Synopsis

In June 2012, Jasper Johns encountered a photograph of the painter Lucian Freud reproduced in a Christie's auction catalogue. Inspired not only by the image, but by the physical qualities of the photograph itself, Johns took this motif through a succession of cross-medium permutations. He also incorporated into his art the text of a rubber stamp he had had made several years earlier to allow him to efficiently decline the myriad requests and invitations that come his way: "Regrets/Jasper Johns." But the stamp's text also calls to mind the more familiar connotations of regret, such as loss, disappointment and remorse, evoking an enigmatic sense of melancholy. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of this series of paintings, drawings and prints created over the last year and a half through an intricate combination of techniques, this publication presents each of the new works in full color. An essay by Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art, examines the importance of process and experimentation, the cycle of dead ends and fresh starts, and the incessant interplay of materials, meaning, and representation so characteristic of Johns' career over the last 60 years.

Review Quotes

Painter Lucian Freud is the subject of this small gathering of Jasper Johns's latest works, which includes two paintings, two prints, four ink-on-plastic drawings and several pencil sketches. The view of Freud is derived from a black-and-white photo by British photographer John Deakin, one of a series used by yet another artist, Francis Bacon, to create his own portraits of Freud. As he sometimes has throughout his career, Johns utilizes a mirrored doubling of the images as a compositional effect, while transforming certain details of the photo- including its creases, tears, and areas where the picture has been lost- into motifs that are repeated and reworked ober succesive iterations.--Howard Halle "Time Out New York"

Painter Lucian Freud is the subject of this small gathering of Jasper Johns's latest works.--Howard Halle "Time Out New York"

About the Author

Ann Temkin is an American art curator, and currently the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Christophe Cherix was appointed The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art in 2013. His appointment followed a reorganization that merged the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, of which Mr. Cherix had been Chief Curator since 2010, with the Department of Drawings. He joined the Museum's curatorial staff in July 2007, after serving as curator of the Cabinet des Estampes at the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva. His specialty is modern and contemporary art, with a particular focus on the art of the 1960s and 1970s.