Letters to the Editor
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‘Shades of Gray’
Lance Esplund begins his review of “Jasper Johns: Gray” — which recently opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — by quoting the Met’s director, Philippe de Montebello, from the exhibition catalogue’s foreword: “Without question, Jasper Johns is one of the greatest artists of our era” [Arts & Letters, “Shades of Gray,” February 7, 2008].
In truth, one should question not only whether Mr. Johns is a great artist but whether he is an artist at all. Mr. Esplund cites the catalogue as stating that Mr. Johns employs gray “to create ambiguity.” He also quotes a wall text from the exhibition stating that Mr. Johns uses gray because it “highlights most powerfully some of [his] central concerns, among them draining his works of the emotions and associations sparked by colors.”
Quite a different impression, however, emerges from what Mr. Johns himself actually says about gray’s significance for him, in a catalogue interview, not mentioned by Mr. Esplund, with Met curator Nan Rosenthal. Among the telling exchanges between the two are these: Q: “What kind of qualities are you seeking?” A: “I don’t know. …” Q: “[Is your use of gray] an attempt to get away from the expressiveness of color?” A: “That could be a thought, I suppose. …” Q: “Does the color gray carry for you a suggestion of ambiguity?” A: “Everything carries for me a suggestion of ambiguity.” Q: “Do you have any idea why you’ve used gray so much?” A: “… I really don’t have a thought about it. …” What does Mr. Esplund think of the work itself ? “Banal and meaningless,” he concludes.
Yet he persists in calling it “art.”
Louis Torres
Co-editor
Aristos
New York, N.Y.
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