賈斯培·瓊斯

Owen Lee (acquired from the artist in 1973)
Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above in 1997)
Christie's, New York, May 17, 2007, Lot 122
Acquired by the present owner from the above

This work is in excellent condition. The sculp-metal surface is clean and stable. Along 1" of the center of the extreme bottom edge, there is some unevenness to the sculp-metal application which appears inherent to the artist's process for this work. Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. This work is framed in a wood frame painted white.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Brimming with the peerless innovation of Jasper Johns’ celebrated practice across every inch of its hypnotizing surface, Figure 6 encapsulates the very essence of this most groundbreaking artist’s aesthetic theory. Executed between 1964 and 1972, and in one of Johns’ favored media of sculp-metal, this phenomenal work bears witness to the artist’s truly revelatory exploration into the nature of painting in the wake of the Abstract Expressionist revolution. Challenging our preconceptions about its status as an aesthetic object by abrogating the boundaries between painting and sculpture, sign, and referent, Figure 6 is the physical manifestation of Johns’ classification of the most successful examples of his art, wherein ``The canvas is object, the paint is object, and object is object.’’  (the artist in an interview with David Sylvester, Interviews with American Artists, 2001, p. 167)

For Johns, choice of ‘subject’ is revelatory of his entire aesthetic spirit. Famously beginning in the mid-1950s with the first of his dream-inspired Flag paintings, Johns adopted a markedly objective style that stressed the complex semiotics of art as object and art as practice. Focusing on `signs’ and `symbols’, Johns explored art’s ability to communicate and the viewer’s ability to perceive. From this starting point, all aspects of Johns’ art of the 1950s and 1960s focused on this act of intellectual investigation; medium, pictorial language, and execution of the work all served to engage the artist and the viewer in the phenomena of artistic expression. In marked contrast to the emotive outpourings of his forebears in the New York School, Johns pursued as his subjects phenomena that were so familiar as to be almost invisible, and approached them with a thoughtful reserve that befitted their inherent ‘neutrality.’ Numbers were particularly favored for their ‘ready-made’ design that required no compositional invention and their status as “pre-formed, conventional, de-personalized, factual, exterior elements.” (the artist cited in David Sylvester, Jasper Johns Drawings, London, 1974, p. 7) By harnessing the connotative power of a sign so familiar as to be immediately recognized, Johns removed all inclination on the part of the viewer to discern a narrative in his work, leaving only an overwhelming impulse to appreciate Figure 6 for its enchanting physical properties.

The complete triumvirate in Johns’ artistic lexicon is ‘signs,’ media, and color. Throughout the early part of his career, Johns explored the artistic possibilities presented by the trinity of red, yellow and blue, complemented by glorious works that resound in one color; the fusion of both ends of the chromatic spectrum – gray. It is through the use of monochromatic gray that Johns achieves the ultimate act of negation and conclusively declares the ‘objectness’ of his paintings. Figure 6 is a particularly sumptuous declaration of this theme, asserting its profound presence through the fabulously variegated texture of its sculp-metal surface. The central importance of monochromism in Johns’ oeuvre was crystallized in the 2007-2008 exhibition Jasper Johns: Gray at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As James Rondeau wrote in the catalogue, "Often [Johns’] preferences are made manifest through essentially additive processes… through strategies of accumulation, repetition, and quotation. .. At other times, effect is achieved through a more determined, subtractive process, distilled as a language of forms, gestures and objects in the absence of color." (Exh. Cat., Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago (and travelling), Jasper Johns: Gray, 2007, p. 23)

Through his use of sculp-metal and collage, Johns confers upon Figure 6 a pronounced enigmatic essence, as the fundamental nature of the aesthetic object is thrown further into question with his elision of the boundaries between painting and sculpture. Divested of color, the marks Johns makes in his sculp-metal surface become even more profound, contrasting only in subtle tonal differences brought about by the variances in reflected light that catch the polished ground. This dichotomy between presentation and representation; between the Image and its Index, draws Johns’ viewer into the drama of the meaning of his paintings, lending them more physical and intellectual resonance.  In the encrusted, heavily worked surface of Figure 6, the viewer can indulge the eye and delight simply in the sheer beauty of Johns’ chosen medium.