dayoutlast is a record of my direct engagement with mostly contemporary art, mostly Los Angelean.

As this blog has evolved since its 2010 inception, so has my perspective. What I once perceived as central within the investigation was what was central, literally, within the photographic frame that I shared here. While still an important consideration, such thinking has also given way to more peripheral considerations, ones also accompanied occasionally by text (written manifestation of thought) and the oscillations between them. What's missing here are larger unknowns surrounding issues of presentation and representation; the amount of time and space it actually takes to accomplish such first-hand observations; and the quandaries between documentation and interpretation.

Despite my attempt to communicate here with image and text what is essential in some respect about the artwork, neither representation should ever be considered a substitution for the primary viewing experience. Of course, occasionally there are exceptions.

Most of the time, these posts are merely remnants---residual fragments---from my last day out.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Jasper Johns "Something Resembling Truth" @ The Broad


Ventriloquist, 1983
Encaustic on canvas
190.2 x 127. 3









Bridge, 1997
Oil on canvas with objects
198.1 x 299.7 cm



The Critic Sees, 1961
Sculpt-metal on plaster with glass
7.9 x 16.5 x 5.4 cm



0 through 9, 1961
Oil on canvas





Dancers on a Plane, 1980
Oil on canvas with patinated bronze frame
200 x 161.9 cm





Celine, 1978
Oil on canvas (two panels)
215.9 x 122.6 cm



Field Painting, 1963-1964
Oil on canvas with objects (two panels)
182.9 x 93.2 cm






I went to see this exhibition twice, once with my family and once with a long-time friend and fellow Johns enthusiast. As with all shows of this magnitude, it's a lot to take in, not just once but twice. For what it's worth, doubling and the nuances of dualisms of all kinds are persistently present in Johns, especially as keyed by the marquis work, Painting with Two Balls.  You be the judge. In fact, that does seem to be an important point to the work, a certain ambiguity, a certain lack of resolution, a certain mount of uncertainty, and therefore a resemblance of truth, whereby it actually may or may not be so, again dependent on the viewer, I think. Once more, you be the judge.  Aside from whatever coy plays/ploys between language and phenomena, this body of work seems to revel and succeed in balancing both.
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