USA ARTISTS: Jasper Johns

Duration: 12:00

Year Published: 1966

Creator: A Production of NET

Complete Record: Interviews the pop artist Jasper Johns, who discusses his ideas about art. Shows scenes of the artist at work in his South Carolina studio and in the lithographic workshop at Tatyana Grossman, Incorporated, New York. Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930) is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking. ________________________________ MS in car looking through the front window, camera tilted upward to catch the tops of an alley of trees spaced closely together. The only clue that this is a car window is a bit of bird poop on the window shield at lower left side. As the car moves, the bird poop looks like a dragon fly moving around he tree. CU Jasper Johns in profile as he drives. He is smoking, and his voice has pauses as he drags on cigarette (probably recorded at a different time). He says he is in Florida. Since Johns spends half the year in Florida, he decided to buy a house there. Not being able to find what he could afford, and because he was having a shown in Columbia, South Carolina, and the occasion proved to be some sort of family reunion, someone mentioned that they knew a house on Edisto Beach. He bought it. He spends half the year there. Footage in and of car as it makes its way to his house. He drives a Ford Mustang. Occasional cuts to his hands on the steering wheel. Camera inside car noting passing scenery and outside watching his car as it is driven to his house. Johns shown walking up steps to his house. CU New York City art dealer, Leo Castelli, talking about how he met Johns. Castelli is talking in front of the American flag painting. Another camera angle picks up his library shelves in background. CU and MS of Jasper Johns in South Carolina in bold checked Pendleton jacket and leaning against tree. Cut back to Castelli in front of the flag painting. Cut to CU Johns talking about himself and his first and early work. He raises his hand at one point so that his right hand holding an alcoholic drink is near his head and in the shot. He talks about painting for painting’s sake and not being tied to representation. Work is shown on a wall. Cut to MS and LS of Johns sitting on the stairway of his South Carolina beach home. He talks of the contrast of urban vs. country life. LS walking through trees by his home. He talks about change of pace of life from NYC. Shots of surrounding landscape. He talks about and is shown in his studio painting. CU of his manipulation of the surface of the painting; LS as he contemplates a painting. LS of Johns in a rocking chair on his porch, hammock in background. CU as he talks about having a painting going in South Carolina and another in NYC. He lives in a penthouse overlooking the Hudson River. Views from his penthouse and him looking out from his parapet. CU and XCU as, in NYC, he talks about his painting and the choices he has as a painter -- to do what is necessary [to make it a ‘good’ painting or make a nonjudgmental change]. This is important to him, and an edge in his work that he considers over and over. He says his early painting had objects, but unqualified. Now his work has charged objects but he hopes that they are neutralized. Johns working in lithographer, Tatyana Grossman’s [founder of Universal Limited Art Editions (U.L.A.E.)] studio. Two men (one of which is Johns)are seen CU and MS working on stones, pulling prints, etc. as Johns talks of his thinking about prints and his work in lithography. Johns sitting and talking about collage. Simple work or assimilated, varied work. Says most of his work is like involved with ‘ambiguous statement’ or multiple possibilities that offer some way of breaking. He doesn’t find one thing to say. CU of one of his drawing. Camera pans and tilts over it. Johns says sometimes he starts with a drawing or sketch, so he begins but it does not meant that the painting is formed. MS of Johns drawing on canvas tacked up on wall. He talks about what he is doing. Uses neon and objects. Johns tries to make pictures he has not done before, but once made -- there it is. Not necessarily astonished by painting once it is done. Needs to study it. Series of CU of his face in NYC and South Carolina. His laughs occur maybe three or four times during this film, and they are as interesting as his paintings.