An artist friend in London prompted me to ask about a less obvious
connection. He guessed that early in their careers Johns and
Rauschenberg had found Picasso's 1914 painted bronze sculpture "Glass of
Absinthe" a singularly generative object.
Johns did not answer yes or no; he seldom does. He said, "I think that's probably true. I think I thought that it was absolutely wonderful, the casting, the painting, the addition of the sugar spoon - all of it. In a sense it's like the Duchamp glass piece, all those different materials used in slightly different ways."
Spoons figure among the common objects Johns has built into his own work.
(fra et 2012-interview)
Johns did not answer yes or no; he seldom does. He said, "I think that's probably true. I think I thought that it was absolutely wonderful, the casting, the painting, the addition of the sugar spoon - all of it. In a sense it's like the Duchamp glass piece, all those different materials used in slightly different ways."
Spoons figure among the common objects Johns has built into his own work.
(fra et 2012-interview)
When he came downstairs to meet me, Johns wore a bill cap, faded work shirt and denim jacket, and mohair scarf which he explained by saying that a sore throat had begun to bother him the previous evening. He has thickened with age since our first meeting 12 years ago but is taller than I remembered.
SvarSletJohns declined to have our chat taped, so I said that keyboarding it directly into my computer might make for some inaccuracy.
"Good!" he said with a laugh. "Accuracy is what I fear most."
We sat in a large, informal sort of living room on the second floor, its walls blanketed by works on paper from his stellar collection: a cluster of de Koonings from several decades, a grouping of abstract and depictive drawings by de Kooning's unjustly underestimated contemporary Jack Tworkov (1900-1982), several Ellsworth Kellys and much else.
When listening, Johns sits utterly stone-faced. But when amusement strikes, a smile transfigures his expression as completely as if he had torn off a mask.
The contrast makes one wonder how he estimates the admittedly submerged humor in his work.
"I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it," he said.