April 26, 2018
How does the work of a significant living artist enter the canon and the archive? And how must the field of art become more inclusive when it comes to representing artistic legacies?
Acclaimed contemporary painter and collagist, William Villalongo, pioneering contemporary artist and founder of Franklin Furnace, Martha Wilson, and poet/ art critic/ curator John Yau engaged in a lively discussion about these questions through their own work and the work of American artist Jasper Johns on April 26, 2018 at the Dweck Center of the Brooklyn Public Library.
Known chiefly for his flag paintings, which reworked American iconography into a new modernist attitude, Johns’ singular œuvre continues to be in active dialogue with contemporary culture. With the publication of a definitive five-volume catalogue raisonné of his work, the astonishing sweep of his art is revealed and we are asked to wrestle with its complexity.
In this two-part talk, we first delved into Jasper Johns’ work through this published catalogue raisonné with contributor Caitlin Sweeney, Director of Digital Publications at the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. Afterwards, our invited panelists discussed and raised challenging questions on living legacy, the archive, and preservation.
Read the transcript of the conversation on Hyperallergic.