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Lot Essay
A dominant voice of the American avant-garde, Jasper Johns paved the way for Pop Art and its progeny and has influenced countless artists throughout his wide-ranging career. Diverging from the emotional lyricism of his Abstract Expressionist peers early on, Johns established a conceptual structure based on language and symbols. An energetic example of his work in ink, 0 through 9 continues this trajectory by positioning numbers as both information to be read and formal elements to be viewed. Often working with a visual vocabulary built on readily identifiable signs, Johns used his semiotic framework to explore a variety of media. By reinterpreting imagery as ubiquitous as the American flag, block letters, and targets, he separated himself from pure abstraction while also eschewing a return to figuration. The artist noted, "With a slight reemphasis of elements, one finds that one can behave very differently toward [an image], see it in a different way" (J. Johns quoted in C. Geelhaar, Jasper Johns: Working Proofs, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel, 1979, p. 67). This drive to reframe the everyday lead to rich variations on themes familiar to a wide audience.
During the summer of 1961, the artist became fixated on the Viennese philosopher, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus, which explored language, the ordering of thoughts and their influence on meaning. It was during this study when Johns embarked on a career-long investigation of the ultimate illogicality of logic within his paintings. Executed on a sheet of plastic, 0 through 9 continues one of Johns’s most recognizable subjects, exemplifying an artist dedicated to the painterly and formal solutions to these philosophical questions. Born out of the celebrated series of paintings that began in the early 1960s, whereby Johns would superimpose the ten Arabic numerals into a single semi-abstract image, this example from 1979 represents an artist dedicated to his treasured motifs.
What at first may appear to be an unruly amalgamation of abstract lines and tones in grayscale is in fact a carefully ordered sequence of all ten numerals from zero through nine. Encapsulated in a rectangular frame, each number is methodically rendered in a thin black line that traces the edges of each curve as one would use a stencil to replicate a particular typeface. As Johns builds upon each of the preceding figures, an all-encompassing ovoid form, itself reminiscent of the zero, becomes visible. The completed beastly composition – a flurry of protrusions and sweeping lines – mirrors the drawings of Lee Bontecou, a contemporary of Johns’ who also mused complex renderings of space from Cubism. Within this conglomeration are various elements that point to the specific values: the peaks of the five thrust out of the top like small horns, a number of serifs protrude from the bottom, and the holes in the nine, six, and eight become two central circles around which the rest of the lines swirl.
Within this turmoil, Johns applies ink to accentuate and fill disparate elements of the whole. At times it is dark and solid while elsewhere it has dried in a cloudy patch watered down into a subtle gray. Explaining his methods in a 1963 interview, Johns mused: “At one point you rule a line...made with the narrow point of a pencil, and this is called a straight line. And in another situation you make it with a very fluffy brush and with your arm...and you end up with what you call a straight line. But they’re very different one from another...the work tends to correct what lies underneath...like drawing a straight line - you draw a straight line and it’s crooked and you draw another straight line on top of it and it’s crooked a different way and then you draw another one and eventually you have a very rich thing on your hands which is not a straight line.” (J.Johns, quoted in P. Karmel, “Cancellation/Creation: Jasper Johns: Drawings over Prints,” in Drawing Over, exh. cat., New York, Leo Castelli, 2010, p. 19). By continuously layering line atop line, the numeric values inherent to the signs are obfuscated while the designed elements in an arrangement of formal systems become visible. One may note this artistic innovation as an extension of the work of Cubism, Picasso’s Ma Jolie representing the movement’s desire to render life down to its geometry; while Picasso seeks to depict the known world in a series of interlocking overlapping semitransparent planes, Johns pushes the envelope, establishing new meaning from the geometries of familiar numeric symbols. Blurring the boundary between the medium and the message, Johns called for a new way of observing.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, Johns diverged from his strict iconography of targets, maps, and flags in order to work with numbers and letters. He investigated the formal qualities of each symbol in a variety of media and would display them on their own or in grids, working alongside his friend and peer Robert Rauschenberg to probe the distinctions between art and life. His final configuration, which is visible in 0 through 9, was realized when he stacked the numerals zero through nine on top of each other. Starting with the zero on the bottom, the artist layered each of the following numbers in sequence until the nine rested on top. This allowed for a more complete dissociation of the meanings ascribed to each sign and promoted an increasingly formal approach. The idea that one can view the zero through the nine as one would peer through a clouded window (and through the rest of the numbers) is hinted at in Johns’s clever titling which also refers to the logical progression of the digits. He created some versions of this composition in metal and Sculp Metal which gave a physicality to the composition. "In the aluminum casts the numbers read as solid layers, suggesting that one could peel back the 9 that appears to sit on top of the stack and reveal the others, one by one" (R. Bernstein, Jasper Johns's Numbers: Uncertain Signs, Cleveland 2003, p.15). In drawings like the present example, this corporeality is traded for a imprecise amalgam of lines and pooled ink that hovers between legible information and geometric abstraction, making 0 through 9 the product of careful, cerebral production of art that propels the viewer’s mind towards a deeper understanding of visual language.
During the summer of 1961, the artist became fixated on the Viennese philosopher, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus, which explored language, the ordering of thoughts and their influence on meaning. It was during this study when Johns embarked on a career-long investigation of the ultimate illogicality of logic within his paintings. Executed on a sheet of plastic, 0 through 9 continues one of Johns’s most recognizable subjects, exemplifying an artist dedicated to the painterly and formal solutions to these philosophical questions. Born out of the celebrated series of paintings that began in the early 1960s, whereby Johns would superimpose the ten Arabic numerals into a single semi-abstract image, this example from 1979 represents an artist dedicated to his treasured motifs.
What at first may appear to be an unruly amalgamation of abstract lines and tones in grayscale is in fact a carefully ordered sequence of all ten numerals from zero through nine. Encapsulated in a rectangular frame, each number is methodically rendered in a thin black line that traces the edges of each curve as one would use a stencil to replicate a particular typeface. As Johns builds upon each of the preceding figures, an all-encompassing ovoid form, itself reminiscent of the zero, becomes visible. The completed beastly composition – a flurry of protrusions and sweeping lines – mirrors the drawings of Lee Bontecou, a contemporary of Johns’ who also mused complex renderings of space from Cubism. Within this conglomeration are various elements that point to the specific values: the peaks of the five thrust out of the top like small horns, a number of serifs protrude from the bottom, and the holes in the nine, six, and eight become two central circles around which the rest of the lines swirl.
Within this turmoil, Johns applies ink to accentuate and fill disparate elements of the whole. At times it is dark and solid while elsewhere it has dried in a cloudy patch watered down into a subtle gray. Explaining his methods in a 1963 interview, Johns mused: “At one point you rule a line...made with the narrow point of a pencil, and this is called a straight line. And in another situation you make it with a very fluffy brush and with your arm...and you end up with what you call a straight line. But they’re very different one from another...the work tends to correct what lies underneath...like drawing a straight line - you draw a straight line and it’s crooked and you draw another straight line on top of it and it’s crooked a different way and then you draw another one and eventually you have a very rich thing on your hands which is not a straight line.” (J.Johns, quoted in P. Karmel, “Cancellation/Creation: Jasper Johns: Drawings over Prints,” in Drawing Over, exh. cat., New York, Leo Castelli, 2010, p. 19). By continuously layering line atop line, the numeric values inherent to the signs are obfuscated while the designed elements in an arrangement of formal systems become visible. One may note this artistic innovation as an extension of the work of Cubism, Picasso’s Ma Jolie representing the movement’s desire to render life down to its geometry; while Picasso seeks to depict the known world in a series of interlocking overlapping semitransparent planes, Johns pushes the envelope, establishing new meaning from the geometries of familiar numeric symbols. Blurring the boundary between the medium and the message, Johns called for a new way of observing.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, Johns diverged from his strict iconography of targets, maps, and flags in order to work with numbers and letters. He investigated the formal qualities of each symbol in a variety of media and would display them on their own or in grids, working alongside his friend and peer Robert Rauschenberg to probe the distinctions between art and life. His final configuration, which is visible in 0 through 9, was realized when he stacked the numerals zero through nine on top of each other. Starting with the zero on the bottom, the artist layered each of the following numbers in sequence until the nine rested on top. This allowed for a more complete dissociation of the meanings ascribed to each sign and promoted an increasingly formal approach. The idea that one can view the zero through the nine as one would peer through a clouded window (and through the rest of the numbers) is hinted at in Johns’s clever titling which also refers to the logical progression of the digits. He created some versions of this composition in metal and Sculp Metal which gave a physicality to the composition. "In the aluminum casts the numbers read as solid layers, suggesting that one could peel back the 9 that appears to sit on top of the stack and reveal the others, one by one" (R. Bernstein, Jasper Johns's Numbers: Uncertain Signs, Cleveland 2003, p.15). In drawings like the present example, this corporeality is traded for a imprecise amalgam of lines and pooled ink that hovers between legible information and geometric abstraction, making 0 through 9 the product of careful, cerebral production of art that propels the viewer’s mind towards a deeper understanding of visual language.