Michael Sweeney
AWW 2015- Hunt
“According To What”- Jasper Johns In the past, art has commonly been relative to its culture and time period. Different techniques, styles and perspectives are adopted among artists, creating a repetitive trend during that given period. Art is normally described as a definitive masterpiece, founded on an idea and created by sculpting, painting or performing. Upon viewing Jasper Johns’ “According To What” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I have concluded that Johns is not your everyday artist, for he artistically and culturally steps outside of the box. His creativity reveals art in a new light, and allows his audience to observe and conclude on their own. Because his work steers his viewers in a direction they didn’t know was there, it is hard to define art as concrete. Jasper Johns showed us a whole new side of art by creating “According To What”. The inconsistency and many imperfections in this work make up the perfection that it is. “According To What” possesses a presence bigger than its physical self. The combination of raw art materials with everyday household objects draws any person’s attention when entering the room. By using a cut-in-half chair, half of a wax leg, a clothes hanger, a silver spoon and wooden letters, he forms this 3D masterpiece all connected by seven different canvases. He also applies newspaper to the canvas, a technique used as foundation to paint over. Instead of painting over the newspaper though, Johns lets them be as they flow across the canvases, switching from a bright to a dark background. This is a prime example of Johns stepping away from the norms of the time. Ready-mades were the basis of the Dada movement. These were everyday items used as subjects in works of art. Johns contradicts this movement by having a useless half a chair and a hanger going