A thing among things; the art of Jasper Johns.

9781933045627

A thing among things; the art of Jasper Johns.

Yau, John.

Distributed Art Publishers

2008

198 pages

$39.95

Hardcover

N6537

The artist Jasper Johns has been hailed as an iconoclast and dismissed as an elitist. He has also been considered nothing more than a precursor of Andy Warhol. Yau (critical studies, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University) sees Johns' work as much more complex than that, a style that has altered and deepened over the years. He takes many of Johns' works from the 1950s on and examines each individually, pointing out the artistic and aesthetic elements in each. Yau argues credibly that Johns should be appreciated on his own terms, rather than as part of a trend and that his recent creations are as compelling as his early ones.

([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)