Existing comment:
Jasper Johns
Target with Four Faces, 1955
For Johns the common shooting target is one of the many "things the mind already knows." Using familiar objects "gives me room to work on other levels," he has explained. Though the target is closely linked with the acts of looking and aiming, the concentric circles of Johns's version are obscured and the surface made tactile with encaustic -- pigment mixed with beeswax -- on collage. Mounted above the target, four plaster casts taken from a single model over a period of several months are arranged in nonsequential order. A hinged wooden lid offers the option of shutting away the small niches that hold these cropped, eyeless faces. |