Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror

Sept 29, 2021–Feb 13, 2022

Jasper Johns’s groundbreaking work sent shock waves through the art world when it was first shown in the late 1950s, and he has continued to challenge new audiences—and himself—over a career spanning more than sixty-five years. He was born in 1930 in Augusta, Georgia; spent the majority of his adult life in New York; and today lives in Sharon, Connecticut, where, at the age of ninety-one, he remains active in his studio. Johns’s early use of common objects and motifs, language, and inventive materials and formats upended conventional notions of what an artwork is and can be. His profoundly generative practice helped spark movements including Pop art, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, among others, and has inspired successive generations of artists to this day.

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is the most comprehensive retrospective ever devoted to Johns’s art. Featuring his most iconic works along with many others shown for the first time, it comprises a broad range of paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures from 1954 to today across two sites. Conceived as a whole but displayed in two distinct parts, the exhibition appears simultaneously here at the Whitney and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, two institutions with which Johns has had long-standing relationships. This unique dual structure draws on the artist’s lifelong fascination with mirroring and doubles, so that each half of the exhibition echoes and reflects the other. Organized in largely chronological order, the retrospective presents pairs of related galleries—one in each city—that offer varied perspectives on the artist’s turns of mind. Individually, each gallery focuses on a particular aspect of Johns’s thought and work through the lens of different themes, processes, images, mediums, and even emotional states. Taken together, they provide an immersive exploration of the many phases, treasures, and mysteries of a radical, enduring, and still-evolving career.

This exhibition is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The organizing curators are Carlos Basualdo, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, with Sarah B. Vogelman, Exhibition Assistant, in Philadelphia, and Lauren Young, Curatorial Assistant, in New York.

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror is presented by

Leonard and Judy Lauder

Leadership support is provided by 

Kenneth C. Griffin 
Susan and John Hess  

Bank of America is the National Sponsor

 

In New York, this exhibition is sponsored by

Generous support is provided by Judy Hart Angelo; Neil G. Bluhm; Matthew Marks; and Kevin and Rosemary McNeely, Manitou Fund. 

Major support is provided by the Barbara Haskell American Fellows Legacy Fund; The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston; Nancy and Steve Crown; Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz; Ellsworth Kelly Foundation and Jack Shear; Agnes Gund; Kristen and Alexander Klabin; Helen and Charles Schwab; the Whitney’s National Committee; and an anonymous donor.  

Significant support is provided by Constance R. Caplan, Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Tom Lentz, the Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation, Sueyun and Gene Locks, Susan and Larry Marx, Marsha and Jeffrey Perelman, Donna Perret Rosen and Benjamin M. Rosen, The Robert Lehman Foundation, and Stefan T. Edlis and H. Gael Neeson Foundation. 

Additional support is provided by Aaron and Leslee Cowen, Kathy and Richard Fuld, Johanna and Leslie Garfield, Ashley Leeds and Christopher Harland, Mrs. Ronnie F. Heyman, Sheila and Bill Lambert, Barbara and Richard Lane, Margo Leavin, Janie C. Lee, Richard and Nancy Lubin, Martin Z. Margulies, the National Endowment for the Arts, Monique and Gregg Seibert, Norman Selby and Melissa Vail Selby, and Gloria H. Spivak.


This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

The opening dinner is sponsored by Christie’s 


New York magazine is the exclusive media sponsor.

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Elegies in Dark

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In contrast to the thematic diversity of the first four decades of Jasper Johns’s art, the past twenty-five years demonstrate a remarkably persistent concern: mortality and its attendants, death, loss, and sorrow. These specters had haunted his work from the beginning, but as Johns entered his late sixties, his preoccupation grew more focused, even as the modes through which he explored it widened. During the late 1990s, he abandoned the surreal fantasies and busy compositions of the previous fifteen years and began the stark and solemn Catenary series, named for the tenuous curve of string that hangs across these works’ dark, moody surfaces.

Since then, Johns has both revived earlier motifs and adopted new ones. He incorporated the outlines of the man and boy from the Seasons paintings (1985–86) in sparer compositions that signal the somber passage of time, while shrouds, crosses, and a pedestal urn evoke funereal markers. Johns also took as sources two photographs of despairing young men and an anguished woman from Picasso, and, as he neared the age of ninety, fixed on the character of a wily skeleton. Nearly all these works are weighted with elegy, and those presented here exist along a grim tonal spectrum. Rarely does a great artist make such frank work about the end of life so late in it. “Occasionally, I have thought that I was working on the last thing that I would do,” Johns remarked in 2020, “but so far I’ve been wrong.”

The corresponding gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art explores sorrow and mortality through luminous versions of recent motifs.

  • Wide rectangular composition of blue-gray brushstrokes, with a vertical band of a muted colorful diamond pattern running down most of the right-hand side; string pinned to the left and right sides of the frame and arcs across the composition from the lower left to the upper right corners.
    Wide rectangular composition of blue-gray brushstrokes, with a vertical band of a muted colorful diamond pattern running down most of the right-hand side; string pinned to the left and right sides of the frame and arcs across the composition from the lower left to the upper right corners.

    Jasper Johns, Catenary (I Call to the Grave), 1998. Encaustic on canvas with objects, 78 × 118 in. (198.1 × 299.7 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art; 125th Anniversary Acquisition; purchased with funds contributed by Gisela and Dennis Alter, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs, Frances and Bayard Storey, The Dietrich Foundation, Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest, Mr. and Mrs. Brook Lenfest, Marsha and Jeffrey Perelman, Jane and Leonard Korman, Mr. and Mrs. Berton E. Korman, Mr. and Mrs. William T. Vogt, Dr. and Mrs. Paul Richardson, Mr. and Mrs. George M. Ross, Ella B. Schaap, Eileen and Stephen Matchett, and other donors, 2001-91-1a–d. © 2021 Jasper Johns / VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

  • Blotchy, black-and-white composition of faces in profile, the silhouette of a child, and an abstract crouching figure.
    Blotchy, black-and-white composition of faces in profile, the silhouette of a child, and an abstract crouching figure.

    Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2010. Black ink and colored ink on paper, 22 × 30 7/8 in. (55.9 × 78.4 cm). Collection of the artist. © 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy the Menil Collection, Houston

  • Abstract composition of blue, yellow, and red on cream-colored paper, with subtle images like human silhouettes and a pinned piece of fabric embedded into the fields of color and pattern.
    Abstract composition of blue, yellow, and red on cream-colored paper, with subtle images like human silhouettes and a pinned piece of fabric embedded into the fields of color and pattern.

    Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2012. Monotype, 42 × 28 3/4 in. (106.7 × 73 cm). Printed by John Lund; published by Low Road Studio. Kravis Collection; promised gift to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in honor of Merrill C. Berman. © 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson

  • Skeleton wearing a hat against a blue vertical panel that runs down the center of the composition, with brick walls on either side and assorted objects and symbols in front, including ladders, a painting, newspapers, and stick figures.
    Skeleton wearing a hat against a blue vertical panel that runs down the center of the composition, with brick walls on either side and assorted objects and symbols in front, including ladders, a painting, newspapers, and stick figures.

    Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2018. Oil on canvas, 50 3/4 × 34 1/8 in. (128.9 × 86.7 cm). Private collection. © 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

  • Green and brown composition of layered rectangles in different hues and patterns, with brown stenciled lettering that runs along both the top and bottom edges of the composition: "FARLEY BREAKS DOWN AFTER LARRY BURROWS".
    Green and brown composition of layered rectangles in different hues and patterns, with brown stenciled lettering that runs along both the top and bottom edges of the composition: "FARLEY BREAKS DOWN AFTER LARRY BURROWS".

    Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2018. Oil on canvas, 39 × 30 1/8 in. (99.1 × 76.5 cm). Private collection. © 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, New York

  • Wide abstract composition of blue-gray and dark blue, broken into irregular shapes, hues, and patterns.
    Wide abstract composition of blue-gray and dark blue, broken into irregular shapes, hues, and patterns.

    Jasper Johns, Regrets, 2013. Oil on canvas, 67 × 96 in. (170.2 × 243.8 cm). Kravis Collection; promised gift to the Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson

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Essay

A young man sitting on the edge of a desk, looking at the viewer with a neutral expression, and holding a glass, against a backdrop of a painting on the wall and a collection of liquor bottles.

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror

By Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator

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Audio guides

Three American flags on top of each other.
Three American flags on top of each other.

Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958. Encaustic on canvas (three panels), 30 7/8 × 45 3/4 in. (78.4 × 116.2 cm) overall. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Gilman Foundation, Inc., The Lauder Foundation, A. Alfred Taubman, Laura-Lee Whittier Woods, Howard Lipman, and Ed Downe in honor of the Museum’s 50th Anniversary 80.32. © 2021 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Hear from artists, curators, and scholars on selected works from the exhibition.

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Exhibition Catalogue

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror book cover
Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror book cover

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror catalogue cover

Jasper Johns (b. 1930) is arguably the most influential artist living today. Over the past sixty-five years, he has produced a radical and varied body of work marked by constant reinvention. Inspired by the artist’s long-standing fascination with mirroring and doubles, this book provides an original and exciting perspective on Johns’s work and its continued relevance.

A diverse group of curators, academics, artists, and writers offer a series of essays—including many paired texts—that consider aspects of the artist’s work, such as recurring motifs, explorations of place, and use of a wide array of media. These include Carroll Dunham on dreams, Ruth Fine on monotypes and working proofs, Michio Hayashi on Japan, Terrance Hayes on flags, and Colm Toíbín on nightmares, among many others. The various themes are further explored in a series of in-depth plate sections that combine prints, drawings, paintings, and sculptures to draw new connections in Johns’s vast output.

Accompanying “mirroring” exhibitions held simultaneously at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this lavishly illustrated volume features a selection of rarely published works along with never-before-published archival content and is full of revelations that allow us to engage with and understand the artist’s rich and varied body of work in new and meaningful ways.

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Explore works from this exhibition
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In the News

“The structure of the exhibition will open a window onto the beauty, meaning, and remarkable artistic order that organizes Johns’s work.” —ArtfixDaily

“The artist’s work has managed to speak both to and for the country’s consciousness for the last 60 years—and he’s not done yet.” —T Magazine

"[A]n absolute must-see"—Vogue

"It’s a broad and restless confrontation of the work of one of the country’s best-known artists . . . ."  —Boston Globe

"This is the first genuine, must-see blockbuster exhibition to open since the pandemic began in 2019, and it might be an occasion for euphoria.” —Washington Post

"It’s a testimony to [Johns's] long, productive career that Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror needs two museums . . . ." —Wall Street Journal

". . . a spectacular exhibition, spanning the artist's 65-year career and featuring many of his most iconic works as well as rare pieces on public view here for the first time."—Gothamist

"Mind/Mirror is a much-needed close-read, experimental new geography of this artist . . ."—New York Magazine

". . . a monumental retrospective [. . .] reveals an artist’s protean talent, changing perspectives and resiliency over six decades."—New York Times

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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