Quote

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

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Jasper Johns
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 15
Artist
Costume Designer
Designer
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Sculptor
Augusta
Georgia
Attention
Functions
Certain
Organize
Doe
Extent
Way
Function
Things
Paid
Civilization
Painting
Organizes
Vision
Suggests

More quotes by Jasper Johns

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I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.
Jasper Johns
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To me, self-description is a calamity.
Jasper Johns
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I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life.
Jasper Johns
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I tend to like things that already exist.
Jasper Johns
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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
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Art is either a complaint or appeasement.
Jasper Johns
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As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.
Jasper Johns
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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
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I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.
Jasper Johns
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A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator.
Jasper Johns
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One's range [of ideas] is limited by one's interests and imagination and by one's passion.
Jasper Johns
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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
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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
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I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts.
Jasper Johns
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There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists.
Jasper Johns
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Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old.
Jasper Johns
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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
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It's simple, you just take something and do something to it, and then do something else to it. Keep doing this, and pretty soon you've got something.
Jasper Johns
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Generally, I am opposed to painting which is concerned with conceptions of simplicity. Everything looks busy to me.
Jasper Johns
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Merce is my favorite artist in any field.
Jasper Johns