Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror Whitney Museum

  

As I mentioned the other day, this huge sprawling show is going to be a big blockbuster and if you are planning on seeing it, (which you should) be prepared for long lines and crowded galleries. The lines will be long because of the checking of vax documentation and photo id’s.  Usually member previews at the big museums are not packed, but this one was different. Although not uncomfortable, there were still the ladies who lunch parked in front of paintings, chatting about this and that taking up space and not looking at the work, they are to be avoided if possible. For a while I had my doubts about Johns, mostly from what I had seen of his later work, but happily this show has lifted any of those doubts I may have had about his art. It is a memorable show documenting the long artistic life of a great artist. There is also a sister or brother show in Philadelphia but I won’t be making a trip there, so the lavish Whitney one will have to do.

It’s full of many of his familiar signature works the early flags, numbers and maps along with many works not that familiar. My God I thought, I was 8 years old when he did these paintings.  He has been thought of   by some as a fussy painter, tight, tense, static and predictable, every brush stroke placed in perfect order. True to some degree, and I have always preferred the more frantic and imaginative Robert Rauschenberg to him. Rauschenberg made things and Johns painted things, but there is plenty of room in my mind and heart for both of them. Their lives and art were intertwined and in a way its a very autobiographical show, with labels finally announcing the gay relationship that Rauschenberg and Johns had.  It really is a retrospective both in the works and the life. This gay stuff was not news to those of us in the art world, we knew but this was a very closeted older gay generation of the post war years and before. It was whispered not shouted.  No doubt Johns gave his permission to finally come out in labels at the age of 91 and better late than never. I met Johns very briefly when I was a very young artist maybe 24, and it did not go well. We were both drinking and I may have come on too strong and Johns reacted with rudeness. I carried that humiliating moment ever since and to be honest my reaction to his work was colored by that meeting. I’ve obviously gotten over that incident and totally enjoyed, no loved this exhibition with its maps, numbers, beer cans, phantom figures, body fragments, lush colors, coffee cans, and mystery. You are in for a treat.