The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns.
In English. Softcover, 112 pages, 24.6 x 19.6 cm. Menil Drawing Institute | The Menil Collection, 2019
Arguably America's most important living artist, Jasper Johns (born 1930) has been a leading proponent of drawing as an artistic genre in its own right, and not just a preparatory medium for other works. This catalogue brings together 41 drawings by Johns, spanning more than 60 years of his illustrious career and, from 1954 onwards, the origin of his mature practice.
It encompasses his most famous recurring motifs, including flags, targets, and numbers, and an essay by David Breslin contextualizes this reiterative aspect of Johns's career. Exquisite reproductions and large-scale details reveal the touch and process of this master draftsman, conveying to the reader the feeling of being in close contact with the artist himself. As this intimate book shows, Johns's art, at once simple and enigmatic, is above all a meditation on the world around him, a constant investigation of what he calls "the condition of being here."
