The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns (Menil Drawing Institute)

by David Breslin

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Book cover for The Condition of Being Here

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Arguably the most important living artist in America, Jasper Johns (b. 1930) has been a leading advocate of drawing as an artistic genre in its own right, not just a preparatory medium for other works. This catalogue brings together 41 of Johns’s drawings, spanning more than 60 years of his illustrious career and, beginning in 1954, the origin of his mature practice. It encompasses his most famous recurring motifs, including flags, targets, and numbers, and an essay by David Breslin contextualizes this reiterative aspect of Johns’s career. Exquisite reproductions and large-scale details reveal the touch and process of this master draftsman, imparting to the reader a feeling of being in close contact with the artist himself. As this intimate book shows, Johns’s art, at once simple and enigmatic, is above all a meditation on the world around him, a constant investigation of what he calls “the condition of being here.”

Distributed for The Menil Collection


Exhibition Schedule:

The Menil Collection, Houston
(11/03/18–01/27/19)

  • ISBN10 0300229305
  • ISBN13 9780300229301
  • Publish Date 16 October 2018
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Yale University Press
  • Format Paperback (US Trade)
  • Pages 112
  • Language English