Target with Four Faces

Narrator: To make this work, Johns transposed the image of a target directly onto the canvas, and crowned it with four faces cast from life. At the time, the art world was largely dominated by abstract painters. Their work was promoted as being deeply expressive, and completely original. In this context, Johns’s choice to paint something as banal as a target caused something of a scandal—many people simply had a difficult time seeing it as being art. But the work is more emotionally complex than it may at first seem. 

Scott Rothkopf: When I look at this painting, I think a lot about how a target is meant to focus sight. 

Narrator: Scott Rothkopf.

Scott Rothkopf: You shoot at it to practice archery, or maybe gun practice, and these faces are missing their eyes. They can’t see. There’s some strange disconnect there between looking at a picture that seems almost to be looking back at you, but can’t really.

It’s a little disconcerting to mix the human form with a target that’s meant to be shot at. This painting has a latched lid at the top of it, which you could actually close. Johns did do that sometimes in his own studio, even if we can’t do it in a museum, hiding the faces, so there’s a secret to this picture, a puzzle meant to be both imagined and explored.