Quote

I have meant what I have done. Or I have often meant what I have done. Or I have sometimes meant what I have done. Or I have tried to mean what I was doing.

Jasper Johns

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jasper Johns
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 15
Artist
Costume Designer
Designer
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Sculptor
Augusta
Georgia
Tried
Often
Done
Sometimes
Mean
Accidents
Meant

More quotes by Jasper Johns

Image
I would tend to say that I do what I do as well as possible and that most people don't.
Jasper Johns
Image
I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than express the personality... The most conventional thing, the most ordinary - it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy.
Jasper Johns
Image
One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space.
Jasper Johns
Image
Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the board. Use this in a painting. - ruler on board.
Jasper Johns
Image
I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life.
Jasper Johns
Image
To me, self-description is a calamity.
Jasper Johns
Image
Art is either a complaint or appeasement.
Jasper Johns
Image
I tend to like things that already exist.
Jasper Johns
Image
Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions.
Jasper Johns
Image
Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old.
Jasper Johns
Image
I think through living one's life, one both changes and remains the same. One can see it either way, one can see oneself as being now what one was and one can see oneself as being absolutely different from what one was. It's a trick of thought.
Jasper Johns
Image
The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another.
Jasper Johns
Image
That’s what painting does it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain other things not be paid attention to. It functions in that way to a certain extent in our civilization.
Jasper Johns
Image
Generally, I am opposed to painting which is concerned with conceptions of simplicity. Everything looks busy to me.
Jasper Johns
Image
I'm not sure what 'coming out right' means. It often means that what you do holds a kind of energy that you wouldn't just put there, that comes about through grace of some sort.
Jasper Johns
Image
Working is very important to me. Probably because as a child I was taught that work was good. I don’t believe it intellectually but I identify with that idea. So it’s probably just like a habit.
Jasper Johns
Image
A-not-complete-unit, or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together. One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of thought. It is not thought which needs showing.
Jasper Johns
Image
I feel that works of art are an opportunity for people to construct meaning, so I don't usually tell what they mean. It conveys to people that they have to participate.
Jasper Johns
Image
I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.
Jasper Johns
Image
I am not strong on perfection.
Jasper Johns