Jasper Johns: Light Bulb

Lower Level Galleries

July 11, 2009 — October 25, 2009

Jasper Johns works fluidly in sculpture, printmaking, drawing, and painting — each format inspires and influences the others as the artist explores the same motifs across his chosen mediums. Jasper Johns: Light Bulb centers on Johns’s first sculpture, Light Bulb I (1958), and provides a focused look at five light bulb sculptures and related drawings and prints, including several from the artist’s collection that have never been exhibited before. This commonplace industrial object was a recurring subject for Johns and it formed a symbolic bridge between Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, Abstract Expressionism, and the burgeoning Pop art trend. His extended inquiry reveals Johns’s intention to go beyond the simple representation of an object to investigate how we perceive, label, and categorize objects in a broader cultural context.

ARTISTS

Jasper Johns

CREDITS

Coordinated for the Henry by Chief Curator Elizabeth Brown.

Princeton University Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and Henry Art Gallery. Jasper Johns: Light Bulb is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The exhibition is made possible by generous gifts from the M & I Pfister Foundation and Iris and Matthew Strauss. Additional support comes from MCASD’s International Collectors; a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture; the County of San Diego; and The James Irvine Foundation. Presentation at the Henry is coordinated by Chief Curator Elizabeth Brown with generous support from ArtsFund, 4Culture/King County Lodging Tax Fund, PONCHO, and media partner Seattle Weekly.