Targeting Jasper JohnsIs the artist overrated?

Remarks from the Fray:

A nicely written essay by Christopher Benfey, even though it barely addresses the question of whether Johns is overrated. Based on this brief survey of Johns paintings (few of which contained actual targets, by the way), I'd say the answer is no.

It's funny to think of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg as old military buddies, but that was the case. "Don't ask, don't tell" was the policy long before anybody made it official. It's hard to imagine Johns, a shy gay artistic Southerner, as a grunt in the Army, and the alienation Johns must have felt from his surroundings goes a long way towards understanding the alienation projected by those boxed-in heads in "Target with Four Faces". They have no eyes, they can't look back, they are in a sense blindfolded, like targets standing before a firing squad.

The only "eyeball" looking out from the piece comes from the target itself. Yet on a standard target, the rings are either red, white or black, a symbol that is loud, clear and declarative. In "Target with Four Faces", the rings are blue and yellow, painted atop a newsprint collage, making for a rather inert bullseye.

As a medium for holding pigment, wax encaustic is milky and thick, muting the colors. Johns preference for such a dull medium helps to explain why grey pictures seem to work so well for him. I agree that "Diver" is a great piece, beautifully painted; it gives me the feeling of being anchored at the bottom of the picture. Diver, indeed.

The only gripe I have about this exhibit is the focus on such a small, and rather arbitrary, collection of Johns output. It would be nice for a museum to put on a retrospective to celebrate him for what he is: America's greatest living artist.

--Utek1

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