22 September 2025
Returning to Jasper Johns today. Specifically two ink and water-soluble encaustic on plastic works After Larry Burrows (2014) and Farley Breaks Down (2014) from his 2019 show Recent Paintings & Works on Paper at Matthew Marks Gallery. Many more works in the show are repetitions on this same motif, (it is Johns), but the relationship between these two is illuminating something for me. The latter is a satisfyingly literal breakdown-via-liquidity of both the former and its subject, yes, but beyond that they are a case in point for one's subject as a means for making work, not an image. In many ways that says it all, but it's a needed reminder to not fall into habit out of some gross acquired desire to be materially or stylistically singular after noticing how positively the art world responds to being able to identify and then commodify an artist's work. I'm not above admitting that that has threatened to throw me off course more than once. Turning into a factory is a process that leads to the wrong kind of thoughtlessness in making, where the end product/idea overpowers the pure, radiant initial impulse of engaging with something that represents a potential door to an expanded reality.