Johns In Paris

a framed poster of a 1961 jasper johns exhibit in paris is dominated by a reproduction of a johns lithograph, 0-9, with all the numbers drawn over each other. the show was at galerie rive droite in paris.
Jasper Johns 1961 exhibition poster, 74 x 46.3 cm, as sold by Thomaston Auction in 2022

Even MoMA lists it as 1960, and they got their copy from the artist in 1961, so maybe. But the exhibition being announced here, Jasper Johns’s first show in Europe, absolutely took place in the Summer of 1961.

0-9 is a 1960 lithograph by jasper johns where the digits 0 through 9 are drawn over each other in a nearly illegible cacophony of lines. this copy of the print was sold at craig starr gallery in 2004
Jasper Johns, 0-9, 1960, 30 x 22 in., showed in Craig Starr’s first show in 2004

I get the confusion, though. Because the poster—most were actually mailers—reproduces a Johns lithograph, signature, date, edition number and all. 0-9 (ULAE 3), 1960, was published in an edition of 35. And whoever got No. 28 photographed it for this poster. Did the Galerie Rive Droite produce the poster, with Johns’s name in his already distinctive stencil? Or was it made in the US? That freeform accent over the Saint-Honoré makes me wonder. In any case, it has a nearly uniform handmade elegance that belies its offset print reality.

a 1961 sculp-metal collage by jasper johns of the numbers 0 thru 9 cut out of this putty/aluminum powder material, and laid on top of each other in a way that their overlaps and layers come through while the color of the surface is a nearly uniform but slightly shiny medium gray. this sold at christie's in 2024
Jasper Johns, 0-9, 1961, sculp-metal and collage on canvas, 67.6 x 54.2 cm, originally shown at Galerie Rive Droite, and sold in 2024 at Christie’s

Galerie Rive Droite was around the corner from the US Embassy where, in the week after his opening, Johns, Rauschenberg, Jean Tinguely, and Niki de St-Phalle organized an art-filled performance for pianist David Tudor. June 20, 1961.

a mostly grey toned painting in encaustic by jasper johns has 15' (minutes) entr'acte stenciled/traced into the bottom third of the canvas, a reference to intermission at the performance art event johns participated in at the us embassy in paris on 20 june 2025. now in the museum ludwig
Jasper Johns, Entr’Acte, 1961, encaustic & collage on canvas, 92 x 65 cm, currently the Collection Ludwig

Johns sent flowers in the shape of a target* and whipped up a painting in the Paris studio of Alabamian ceramist Fance Franck. Though there was no actual intermission and the action never stopped, Entr’Acte was placed on stage for 15 minutes. Like the Sculp-metal 0-9 collage in the exhibition, Entr’Acte was bought by the secretary at Galerie Rive Droite, Georges Marci.

But was it really? To Google her now, Georges Marci shows up in the provenance of various blue chip artworks, is repeatedly called the “grand dame of contemporary art in Switzerland,” which has to be a self-anointed thing, and is known for opening the first gallery in Gstaad. But I guess people never thought the tapes would be made public, because in her 1974 oral history for the Archives of American Art, dealer Judith Richardson basically called Marci a thief who murdered her husband.

Richardson worked for both Sidney Janis and Ileana Sonnabend, Castelli’s ex. Which meant she worked with many overlapping artists with Galerie Rive Droite, run by Jean Lecarde. Lecarde wanted to open a gallery in Switzerland, and to get around the residency requirements, he transferred all the inventory to Marci’s name. And then she just froze him out and kept it, and he went bankrupt. This is how Arman tells the story, Richardson said. Arman was there, she said he said, when Marci set her depressed Egyptian husband up with the pills he used to kill himself. And then she got all his Coptic art.

Anyway, where were we? Johns found encaustic in Paris, borrowed a studio, and made this painting in like a day or two. While also finding time with Bob to shoot some paintings at St Phalle’s. Eric Doeringer just saw one at the Tate, shot by both Rauschenberg and Johns, and texted me about it. Turns out it was in St Phalle’s show that opened June 30, 1961. A busy summer in Paris.

Previously, related: The Performance Art in Embassies Program
* I have long wanted to see, then make, this flower arrangement, but I can’t remember where I’ve ever seen a photo of it. Somewhere, though. I’ll look.

In her MoMA retrospective, Leah Dickerman had a photo of Rauschenberg painting on stage while David Tudor played the piano. But she also said Johns carried his painting on stage to signal intermission, while Tomkins said Johns refused to go on stage. Both could somehow be true.

a 1961 shunk & kender photo of a 1m or larger square flower arrangement in the form a jasper johns target sits on a stage in paris, a grand piano in the rear left, and robert rauschenberg and jean tinguely in between curtains and backdrops on the right, from jasper johns's catalogue raisonne, vol. 5
Shunk & Kender, is there anyplace you weren’t in the 60s? Jasper Johns’ Floral Target, 1961, at David Tudor’s performance of Cage’s Variations II in Paris, via Roberta Bernstein’s chronology in JJ CR, vol 5

I knew I’d seen it somewhere. A closer look at Roberta Bernstein’s chronology shows Johns was booked and very busy in Paris: he made two plaster casts** in Tinguely’s studio; his costumes appeared on Merce dancers June 12; his show opened June 13; Tudor’s performance on the 20th; and he helped install Saint-Phalle’s show, which opened on the 28th. Also, what part of this itinerary did Shunk & Kender plan to be there for? Because it is amazing that they were around for an impromptu concert that came together in a matter of weeks.

** About those plaster casts: they were made from moulages made of the sculp-metal 0-9 and a similar Figure 3 from the Rive Droite show. So a 2nd generation cast. Which Johns used to promptly cast four more 0-9 in aluminum and, in 1997, four Fig. 3 in bronze. I low-key love that this feels like Johns wanting to keep engaged with works of his own that he expects not to see again, at least for a while.

Five Friends? Nine Friends

a black and white souvenir photo from 1958 of two white men in suits, john cage and karlheinz stockhausen, with their left arms draped over the edge of a painted cardboard picture of a junker plane, as if they're riding in an open car. the plane image is composited above a landscape photo of a ferry on the rhine, with the iconic ruins of a medieval castle on top of the famous mountain, drachenfels in the background. the whole image is blurry as if it's been copied and reprinted several times over. from october magazine, august 1997

Not only did they go back, they brought all their friends.

When I posted this 1958 souvenir photo of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen flying over the romantische ruins of the castle at Drachenfels, I thought it’d be a stretch to make too contemporary a connection. And so I didn’t mention the landmark exhibition, Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly which is on right now at the Museum Brandhorst in Münich. It’s the first exhibition to look at the work of these five as a tightly interrelated group of queer artists in an intense cultural moment.

And then Bluesky blew my mind when Michael Lobel and Michael Seiwert both posted this photo:

a black and white tourist photo of nine white ppl crowded into and around a fake helicopter photo backdrop from drachenfels on the rhine in germany. inside the chopper are carolyn brown, merce cunningham, john cage, mrs stockhausen whose name i forget, david tudor, and michael von biel. underneath the helicopter, because they wouldn't fit, are steve paxton, karlheinz stockhausen, and robert rauschenberg. paxton, brown, and a couple of other folks are holding glasses of beer. this photo was taken on a world tour of merce's dance company
Inside: Carolyn Brown, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Doris Stockhausen, David Tudor, Michael von Biel; Underneath: Steve Paxton, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Robert Rauschenberg, a 1964 photo from Königswinter at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, via Museum-Brandhorst

The 1958 photo reminded Lobel that he’d seen this larger group shot in a 2016 Rauschenberg essay at Tate. Seiwert noticed it because it’s IN the Brandhorst exhibit.

Germans see this 1964 photo taken during a Merce Cunningham Dance Company world tour and are like, Mein Volks! The Tate caption incorrectly says it’s from Cologne, but it’s got Drachenfels written right on the helicopter. Seiwert points out that in 1964, Stockhausen was living near Königswinter and Bonn, the capital of West Germany, so it would have been an obvious destination for our intrepid dance troupe.

Meanwhile Jasper Johns was at home, painting.

Five Friends runs through 17 August 2025 at the Museum Brandhorst [museum-brandhorst.de]

For Your Jasper Johns Tablescape

a dinner plate printed with a round jasper johns pastel drawing from 2001 of two stylized heads hanging from stems of a leafy green treebranch. the left head is light purple with a central blush of orange, a distorted picasso head. the right is a yellow/orange optical illusion of a young and old woman's faces. 150 of these plates will be sold in two weeks in may 2025, most at an art fair, to raise money for the coalition for the homeless
Jasper Johns, Artist Plate Project, 2025, via Artware

I gotta say, I did not expect to see Jasper Johns in the Artist Plate Project. But as Benjamin Godsill was telling APP organizer Michelle Hellman in the latest episode of Nota Bene, this year is full of bangers.

This is the fifth year that Hellman has put together a collection of artist-designed plates whose sale benefits the Coalition for the Homeless in NYC, and it is remarkable. Once the APP began debuting the plates at art fairs, they’ve taken on a wild, competitive philanthropic eshopping energy.

This year there are fifty plates, each in an edition of 150, with the first 100 reserved for the opening day of Frieze NY. The rest will go on sale the following week at Artware Editions. The plates are just $250 each, about the price of a lunch at an art fair. [Artware also has some previous years’ plates, including individually signed plates, and a couple of complete sets, no waiting.]

a round jasper johns pastel drawing from 2001 comprises two stylized heads hanging from stems of a leafy green treebranch. the left head is light pinkish purple, a distorted picasso head. the right is a yellow/orange optical illusion of a young and old woman's faces. via matthew marks gallery
Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2001, pastel on paper, 25 1/2 inches diameter, via Matthew Marks Gallery

What’s wild about Johns is not that he did it, but that he had a tondo drawing ready for instant plate adaptation. Johns had used both the Picassoid head and wife/mother-in-law optical illusion in many works for years; having them sprout surreally from a tree branch, in a round pastel? Not so much. But he showed this picture in the 10th anniversary drawings show at Matthew Marks at the end of 2001.

Oh wait, actually he did not. That is an entirely different work—same motif, different object. When the Marks drawing turned up at auction in 2015, it had an uncharacteristically full essay, especially for a day sale, with a surprisingly full discussion of Johns’ references.

Art Kites Project, Strings Attached

robert rauschenberg's 20-ft tall by 10-ft wide kite flying in a cloud filled sky over himeji castle in japan, which is in the lower right corner of the 1989 image. the kite is orange and red silk screenprinted with black images of chairs and peeling paint in classic rauschenberg collage style. via the rrf instagram
Robert Rauschenberg, Sky House II, screenprint on silk collage, bamboo, 372 x 248 cm, image via ig/RRF
Sky House I, meanwhile, Rauschenberg kept for himself, according to former assistant Thomas Buehler

Robert Rauschenberg’s genius in making a 20×10-foot Art Kite was in understanding the opportunity while ignoring the assignment. Because the opportunity was to make two Art Kites, and have your Art Kites fly in the “vernissage in the sky” at an Art Kite Festival held amidst the blossoming sakura on the grounds of Himeji Castle. While the assignment was to promote Lufthansa.

a 1989 photo of a big square yellow kite with the lufthansa logo of a screaming chicken or whatever the nazis came up with, which the reformed german staffers who reconstituted the company anew in 1953 adopted straight up, just somehow with no nazi association or past now, it's a miracle, flying in a lightly clouded sky over himeji castle. from art kites, the goethe institute catalogue, where the last page and the last image turns out to be the same as all the other money shots of artist-designed kites flying over himeji-jō you just flipped through, and the caption reads, the world tour of the art kites is sponsored by lufthansa, in english and japanese
And for the first 461 pages, I thought the show was about how flying and art are the same glorious expression of human freedom: “The world tour of the Art Kites is sponsored by Lufhansa” [p.462]

Obviously, it was more than that, but also just that. The Art Kites Project was sponsored by Lufthansa and organized by Dr. Paul Eubel, director of the Goethe Institute Osaka, which commissioned 100 artists from around the white world and Japan to create Japanese-style kites in 1987. The kites would fly once in Japan, on April 1 & 2, 1989, and once in Europe, on April 21 & 22, 1990, go on tour for three five years, to 21 museums in Japan (8), Europe (12), and Canada (1), before being auctioned off.

Continue reading “Art Kites Project, Strings Attached”

Jasper Johns: Take An Object, Add Some Little Guys To It

a close up film frame grab of jasper johns touching up the corners of a copper intaglio plate sitting on a white worktable at ulae. the horizontal rectangular plate features three stick figures holding brushes, a motif johns first used 7 years earlier. via hans namuth and judith weschler's 1990 film, jasper johns: take an object
Johns adding these little figures in Namuth & Weschler’s 1990 film, Jasper Johns: Take An Object

“I thought to add these little figures, which appear in a different drawing of mine, an old drawing. They’re in the bottom of Perilous Night, for John Cage.”

Oh hey, look, it’s Jasper Johns in 1989 discussing the addition of his little stick figures to another work for what sounds like the first time since he used them in 1982.

jasper johns 1990 print, the seasons, is a jumble of elements from his painting series of the same name, rearranged into an interlocked cross form, with three tiny stick figures appended to the bottom.
And little guys: Jasper Johns, The Seasons (ULAE 0249), 1990, intaglio, 50 1/4 x 44 1/2 in., ed. 50

Johns is talking to filmmaker Judith Weschler, who produced Jasper Johns: Take An Object with photographer Hans Namuth in 1990. The short film is bracketed by two extended scenes of Johns at work: in 1972, painting in his own studio, and in 1989, printmaking at ULAE.

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Twombly Four Gators

a 1972 work on paper cy twombly made for robert rauschenberg is a horizontal sheet of cream paper with a row of four souvenir postcards depicting alligators, rougly evenly spaced, with variously thick or thin lines drawn above and below them. a couple are overlaid with transparent graph paper. below them, in the lower center of the sheet, a fifth postcard is mounted face down, so that the text portion is up. it reads cy twombly captiva dec 20 72, to bob r. xmas 72. two clusters of thickly drawn, diverging diagonal lines point down from the top gator row, alongside the label postcard. small numbers are written near or above the various lines, with meanings not readily apparent. the work was in the collection of rauschenberg when it was published in twombly's drawings catalogue raisonné
Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1972, collage on paper, 22 3/4 x 31 inches, image via CR-Works on Paper, v6-17

You cannot fully understand Twombly’s art unless you know that there is gators.

Twombly went to Rauschenberg’s house in Captiva in November 1970 and made collages; in December 1971 and made prints, but those catalogues raisonnés were checked out, so who knows? In the winter of 1972, he made this collage as a Christmas present for Rauschenberg. It has four, possibly five, postcards of alligators on it.

I really didn’t think of collage as a Twombly thing. But it looks like a major part, maybe even most of his works on paper in the 1970s were collages. He collaged with catholic zeal: Leonardo images; mushrooms and natural history book illustrations; graph and drawing paper; fragments of other drawings; and, in Captiva, especially, touristy postcards.

Twombly’s lines here index the placement and width of the postcards, and of their crossed out captions, as if the composition is a conceptual schematic of itself. It’s still very much a drawing.

Sardine Bed, F’ing Couches, Judd Table

Not everything is absolutely terrible.

a wide installation shot of furniture designed by artists at leo castelli gallery in soho in sept 1972 is mostly open loft floor. in the back of the photo, some silvery minimalist objects sit on the floor. to the right, in front of the row of white painted columns, is a cube shaped chair made of intricately cut and assembled wood, by gus spear. above the open floor, a swing/chair by mark di suvero is suspended from the ceiling. its form resembles an opened paper clip or staple, made from thick pole, not wire. via aaa
installation view of Furniture Designed by Artists, with Marc di Suvero’s swing hanging in the center of Leo Castelli Gallery, Sept. 1972, photo: James Patrick via LCG Archives at AAA

For example, if I hadn’t gone to the Archives of American Art looking for information on Cy Twombly & Robert Rauschenberg’s two-artist show at Leo Castelli in 1974, I might not have found the September 1972 show at Castelli, Furniture Designed by Artists, which listed Twombly along with “Chamberlain, Judd, Lichtenstein, Morris, Stella [and] Warhol.”

TWOMBLY FURNITURE?? CLICK TO OPEN! Yeah so far, nothing, and the Warhol might be a Campbell’s Soup print on the wall. [Yeah, no, there is a typical Castelli invite for the show on ebay that lists six furniture artists: Chamberlain, Di Suvero, Judd, Lalanne, Rauschenberg, Charles Ross, and Gus Spear. Maybe everyone else was just art artists.]

a top down black and white photo of lalanne's sardine bed, made of foam and covered in silver-painted leather, as installed at leo castelli gallery in 1972. nine sardine-shaped cushions are lined up inside the foam "tin". in the upper right, an unidentified organic sculpture, perhaps a chair, sits on a white pedestal. on the upper left, a still coffee table by donald judd suddenly looks a lot like a tin of sardines. via aaa
installation view of Lalanne’s Sardine Bed, 1972, at Furniture Designed by Artists, Leo Castelli Gallery, Sept. 1972, photo: James Patrick via LCG Archives at AAA

But if I hadn’t clicked, I’d have definitely kept missing this Lalanne Sardine Bed. Which was a one-off, commissioned by the show’s organizer, Jane Holzer, of the Warhol Factory Jane Holzers, who at 31, had rebooted herself as an impresaria. Leo Castelli was apparently involved in her artist furniture startup Daedalus Concepts, which, except for the Times puff piece for this show, exists only in the provenance listings of of various John Chamberlain sofas.

Continue reading “Sardine Bed, F’ing Couches, Judd Table”

Villa Jasper: He Sold The House in St Martin

the patio and pool of a hilltop villa in st martin is enclosed by trees along the right edge. on the left, a tile roof held by thick, round columns shades a teak seating arrangement on the terra cotta tile patio. through it to the left, past a row of blue upholstered lounge chairs facing the rectangular pool, another deep veranda with tile roof leads inside a white stucco house and immediately through to a distant view of blue water, shore activity, and green mountain. the sky is bright blue with clouds. at the lower front edge, the corner of a similarly rectangular lily pond is surrounded by low shrubs. villa jasper used to be jasper johns' house in st martin, where he'd spend almost every winter since 1980 working. it's now a luxury rental property, part of the st martin blue luxury villa collection.
Oh sprawling farm in Sharon, we’re really in it now: the pool and patio at Jasper Johns’ old place in St Martin. I do not think the flamingo conveyed.

Speaking of artists retreating to remote beaches, it turns out Jasper Johns, 94, sold his hilltop house and studio in St Martin early in the pandemic.

Johns began visiting St. Martin in 1968, two years after a fire destroyed his home and studio in Edisto, South Carolina. He bought a house in 1972, which he had nazi architect Philip Johnson renovate in 1980.

From Sotheby’s International Realty: “While major upgrades have been made to the property’s comfort and amenities, much care and attention was taken to ensure that Philip Johnson’s distinct minimalism and purity of line was preserved and that the soul of Jasper John’s [sic] house remain palpable.”

It is now called Villa Jasper, and is available for rent as part of the St. Martin Blue Luxury Villa Collection. If the flamingo in the pool is not new, we’ll have to significantly update our understanding of Johns’ home vibe.

This Post Is Actually Mostly About Bob Petersen

cy twombly and rauschenberg reclining amind talk grass in 1974, probably. twombly's up on his elbow, his scrunchy hat and white blazer over a pea green sweater, looking off the left side of the image. rauschenberg is lying down, eyes closed, hands behind/under his head, in a short sleeved safari shirt. both are wearing dad jeans and brown leather shoes. bob's bf robert petersen took the photo.
The invitation postcard for the opening of Robert Rauschenberg & Cy Twombly’s two-person show at Leo Castelli Gallery, May 4, 1974, is a photo of the two lounging in Captiva by Bob Petersen, via @leomartinfaber

Bob Petersen: …is Columbia doing Cy Twombly?
Q: I don’t know. There’s a gallery at Columbia, but I don’t know.
Petersen: The oral history of Cy Twombly?
Q2: He died before—
Petersen: God, I have tons of stories from Cy.
Q: Oh, you mean as an oral history subject?
Petersen: Yes, right, just to record. God, Cy and Bob were of course so close.

In 1970 Robert Rauschenberg, 45, moved to Captiva, a Florida island only then only reached by ferry, and Gemini GEL printer Bob Petersen, 25, moved with him. They lived on the beach side of the wild, 16-acre property Rauschenberg had assembled, and eventually set up an experimental print foundry, Untitled Press, in a house on the other side. That’s where a bunch of artist friends stayed, including Cy and Nicola [that’s not in the Chronology], who started coming during the winters from 1971 through 1975.

Continue reading “This Post Is Actually Mostly About Bob Petersen”

Johns Cicada On The Loose

With so much to worry about and so much to do about it These Days, sometimes you gotta just let some other things slide. Like until we get the rule of law back, and the government can’t just grab you off the street and yeet you to a jungle gulag with no recourse or due process, I’m gonna stop getting annoyed by people breaking up print portfolios and selling them for parts. Especially fundraising portfolios, which are sort of a grab bag to begin with.

a jasper johns cross hatch lithograph titled cicada is dominated by red, as several of the stones usually used for multiple overlapping colors were, in this case, used to print only shades of red. it's sick as hell tho, and the best print in a portfolio of eight snoozers, made in 1981 as a fundraiser for johns' foundation for contemporary performing arts. this copy is being sold without the rest of the portfolio at bonhams in april 2025
Jasper Johns, Cicada, 1981, lithograph, 35 x 26 in. sheet, ed. 41/50+11AP is at Bonhams LA tomorrow, 4/8

Besides, this Jasper Johns lithograph, Cicada, is absolutely the best work in the Eight Lithographs to Benefit the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc. portfolio. I mean, the other fellas’ prints are nice, but this is the one that pops out.

Obviously it’s the red. Johns made a whole series of Cicada screenprints in 1979-81, in eight different color variations, starting with the crosshatch classic, red/yellow/blue. And in 1981, he also made two larger lithograph Cicada prints. All somehow have identical crosshatch patterning, with different text format along the bottom edge. In addition to the red on the red stone, I think the FCA portfolio Cicada swaps in red for the black crosshatches that give the print its structure. The result: a lot of red. I like it.

8 Apr 2025, Lot 131, Jasper Johns, Cicada, 1981, est. $25-35,000 [update: unsold] [bonhams]

Twombly Cinematic Universe

this sally mann photo of cy twombly's studio is from 2011, probably. a densely calligraphed white on deep blue painting sits in a thick, old carved giltwood frame on a dark easel, next to a work table cluttered with mail, books, posters, acrylic paint jars, and a five-tiered square wedding cake of a twombly sculpture made out of white boxes with what looks like a caketopper-like figure in a chair, but is probably a blob of plaster-soaked rag. on one of the plinths of the sculpture rests a black an dwhite polaroid photo. two thin stalk-like sculpture elemtns rise behind the table, and the whole scene is blown out and backlit by the light coming through the thin accordion style blinds in the background. sally mann is a professional photographer so this is an artistic choice. it's not like she was going to tell twombly to relight or restage his studio. we're lucky to have this
Sally Mann photo of Cy Twombly’s Lexington Studio from Remembered Light

Looked through Remembered Light: Cy Twombly in Lexington, Sally Mann’s 2016 book of photos of Twombly’s places, for the first time the other day, and saw this. A perfect little painting in a fat, baroque giltwood frame in his cluttered storefront studio.

But this is not just any perfect painting. [I don’t actually know what painting it is, tbh.] I just know it was a major plot [sic] in Tacita Dean’s 2011 film, Edwin Parker.

a 12yo detail of a screenshot from tacita dean's 2011 film edwin parker is the interior of twombly's cluttered studio, where twombly, his back to the camera and wearing a camel colored corduroy jacket, is standing in front of a red green orange and black swagged painting which he's trying to reset in an old, carved giltwood frame sitting on an easel. A white guy in workwear and a baseball hat, twombly's driver and local assistant in lexington virginia whose name is literally butch, like, butch is his name, is standing to the left, not quite helping, but trying to be ready to help with some tape or whatever. a yellow measuring stick has been inserted behind the painting to wedge it into the frame, by nicola del roscio, twombly's companion or whatever, who understood that on the easel, there was nothing holding the painting in place.

Maybe plot is a little strong. In her quiet, attentive film Dean doesn’t follow Twombly around so much as just be where he is, and observe. And for most of the film, he’s in this little studio. The first action or narrative drama, such as it is, involves a painting that has fallen out of this picture frame, and Twombly tries to fix it. The two men with him—first, Butch, his local assistant, and then Nicola Del Roscio—alternately hover and jump in to help with tape and a tape measure.

a screenshot from tacita dean's 2011 film edwin parker which shows twombly's storefront studio after the three men have gone outside, on their way to lunch. the jury-rigged painting with the tape measure sticking out is in the center right middle ground. the clutter of a table, with books and boxes and bags and the tiny head of a porcelain frog from a yard sale are out of focus in the lower foreground. a couple of white painted sculptures or sculptures in progress stick up like lone buildings in this messy skyline. the pleated accordion shades probably bought at walmart are down, the light is better than sally mann's photo, at least stereotypically better.
detail of a screenshot from Tacita Dean’s Edwin Parker, 2011

When I had a review copy of Edwin Parker like ten years ago, I got kind of fixated on this painting, wondering what it was, where it was, and taking grainy screencaps so that I could track it down.

When the Hirshhorn was wrapped in his giant curtained scrim, the swag and slightly lurid colors made me worry Twombly’s painting was by Nicholas Party. When I was making Facsimile Objects about inaccessible Dürers in German museums, I wondered if it was the freely painted verso of something more mundane.

a google streetview screenshot of the back of a durer painting in the state museum in karlsruhe, germany, which is mounted on a white pedestal in a black and gold edged frame. the back of the painted panel is swirling red green pink blue, pale yellow, interpreted as a slice of agate, and I forget what's on the front. some devotional image of jesus [love him, don't get me wrong, but not the point rn] the gallery floor dominates the image; it is strip wood. the walls are pale grey with a dark grey stone baseboard. google streetview cruft and ui elements abound obv
gsv of a Dürer in Karlsruhe, via

Later in the film, Del Roscio is holding the blue & white painting up top, flipping it around, as Twombly says it’ll fit in the frame. It looks like it’s related to the series of paintings Twombly made for the Louvre in 2008, as part of his ceiling deal.

a woman in a black hijab walks with her phone outstretched, presumably filming or photographing as she walk along a series of cy twombly paintings on the white wall of the louvre abu dhabi. the paintings are vertical, larger than human scale, in deep dark blue with loose, thick gestural calligraphic loops and rows of marks in white. the nine paintings were bought by the louvre for the louvre abu dhabi, and then the louvre in paris had twombly make a blue ceiling mural for them. the image originally comes from cnn
installation view of Cy Twombly’s Untitled I–IX, 2008, at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, screenshot via CNN

So the plot, such as it is, involves the swapping out of one painting for another. Technically, this climax does not happen in Edwin Parker; Del Roscio is only shown setting the little painting carefully against the wall.

Whether that makes Mann’s photo a spoiler, a sequel, or just a post-credits teaser, I cannot say. All I know is now I have two little paintings to track down.

Cy Twombly Worked-On Paper

a screenshot of a photo of a clear plastic box filled with tiny balls of rolled up paper, sitting on its lid in a featureless ground, a 1953 sculpture by cy twombly, as published in katie nesin's 2014 book, cy twombly's things, the original photo taken by nicola del roscio himself, amazingly, for the cy twombly foundation
Twombly, Get me some tissue: Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1953, paper balls in plastic box, tape, 1 7/8 x 3 1/4 x 2 5/8 in., as published in Katie Nesin’s Cy Twombly’s Things (2014, Yale Univ. Press), photo: Nicola Del Roscio himself [!]

A lot of Twombly tabs open, as is the custom. After watching Art Institute curator Katie Nesin’s lecture about it, I checked out her 2014 book, Cy Twombly’s Things, an art historical close read of the artist’s sculptures.

Nesin examines at great length Twombly’s practice of painting his sculptures. It’s something Twombly referenced in one of his few artist statements, and which curators addressed, too. I know what they all mean, I really do, and so do you, but it is really hard to read statements coming straight outta Lexington like, “The reality of whiteness may exist in the duality of sensation (as the multiple anxiety of desire and fear). Whiteness can be the classic sttae of the intellect, or a neo-romantic idea of remembrance—or as the symbolic whiteness of Mallarmé. The exact implication may never be analyzed, but in that it persists as the landscape of my actions, it must imply more than mere selection.” And Kirk Varnedoe talking about “the increasing self-consciousness of his commitment to white,” and Nesin concluding “it is white’s susceptibility to contamination that remains the point,” in 2025 and think it all stays neatly contained in the art box.

Anywho, that’s a dissertation for another day. I mention it because Nesin traces the development of Twombly’s practice of painting his sculptures white with a picture of one of the few, early sculptures he didn’t paint white. Untitled (1953) is white on the inside. It’s a tiny plastic box filled with little rolled up balls of paper. Nesin argues that it’s also “derivative” because its size and nature refer to the scatole personali, the little fetish boxes, objects, and constructions Robert Rauschenberg showed in their two-person show in Florence in mid-March. [In a sharp detour from whiteness, Twombly showed geometric tapestries he constructed from textiles he bought in Tangier.] Which, yes, I see the connection.

robert rauschenberg's 1953 work Untitled Paper Painting was an 18 x 14 x 4 inch glass display case with a thin beveled wood base, filled with crumpled tissue paper that cy twombly said came from shoe boxes, sitting on a rough wood floor against a black background. the photo is from the rauschenberg foundation, the sculpture is lost or destroyed. perhaps by twombly tearing it up into little balls and putting it in his own box, who knows
Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (paper painting), 1953, 18x14x4 in., shoe box tissue paper, glass, wood base. lost or destroyed, or maybe rolled up into little balls in Twombly’s pocket

But there is a closer reference in 1953. In the then-couple’s Fulton Street studio, Robert Rauschenberg filled a glass case with tissue paper from shoe boxes and called it a paper painting. Did Twombly take some of Rauschenberg’s tissues and make them into balls he could keep in his pants? Did they make their his & his tissue boxes together? Whose personal fetish are we talking about, actually? While it’s impossible to say for sure who came first, it does seem likely these two came together.

Heading To Bassano, Wish You Were Here

the back of a postcard from cy twombly to reiner speck where the message section is filled by a scribbly swirl of orange and black crayon, partly obscuring the florida peninsula logo but leaving the caption of the photo on the recto about depicting a startlingly beautiful florida sunset intact. AIRMAIL across the top and Speck's name and address on the right are written in Twombly's distinctive hand, which is all the signature you need, I guess. via maison d'art
The startlingly beautiful hues of a tropical Florida Sunset are depicted here in all their splendor and completeness that Cy Twombly didn’t need to add anything, not even his signature, via Maison d’Art

It’s the little differences. Where Marcel Duchamp’s letters to his collector friend Katherine Dreier are all, “shipping is $34, please send me $34,” Cy Twombly’s letters to his collector friend Reiner Speck are like, “we await you in the summer castle.” I have read the Twombly correspondence with noted urologist and Proust expert Herr Dr. Reiner Speck in the catalogue for Maison d’Art’s current exhibition, and here’s the expanded tl;dr:

Continue reading “Heading To Bassano, Wish You Were Here”

Lingerie & The John Cage Kimono

a hip-length kimono style robe in cream charmeuse silk with one sleeve in mauve, one striped with bone, and the bottom edge striped in mauve or light grey, on an archival hanger against a grey background. designed by john cage, or rather, conceived by john cage and designed using chance operations, and produced by crown point press, now in the collection of famsf
John Cage Kimono and Sash, 1982, hand-painted silk, published [sic] by Crown Point Press, via FAMSF

Is it really chance operations if a seemingly tangential Google search leads me to The John Cage Kimono?? From the Crown Point Press Archive, a gift to the de Young and/or Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco?

And then an immediate follow-on search turns up the Crown Point Press Spring 1984 newsletter [pdf] which, the contemporary editions drama! I’ll get to the computers and fraud later, but first the “lingerie business”:

Continue reading “Lingerie & The John Cage Kimono”

Torn From Today’s Headlines

a robert rauschenberg screenprint of a collage made of clippings from newspapers in 1969, includes [clockwise from top left] a photo of cars stranded in the snow; a white woman in a miniskirt with a longer skirt drawn over her; a comet; ted kennedy, some racist judge nixon tried to put on the supreme court who eventually got voted down because twelve republicans still had enough conscience left to be shamed over unalloyed white supremacy, can you even imagine? anyway, several articles and photos of gm assembly lines and the threat of robots and depleted pensions; a chevron tanker truck overturned on a freeway; a hand holding a case of birth control pills; a sideshow entrance with the world's largest rats; a coal mining ship and a truck being craned onto a ship; more assembly line; and a ship docking on the hudson pier. from the 26-print portfolio known as Features from Currents, being sold at Wright 20 in apr 2025
Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (from Features from Currents), a 26-print portfolio, 1970, 40 x 40 in. sheet, being sold in April 2025 at Wright20

Though Our Most Important Art Historians disparage the practice, I could not resist zooming in to read the specific newspaper clippings that Robert Rauschenberg included in just one his 26 Currents prints. Honestly, I did not expect them to hit so hard, one after the other:

The threat of robots taking union jobs
The threat of executives taking union pensions
Gas tanker overturned on a freeway causing mayhem
WORLD’S LARGEST RATS
Birth control
Woman’s outfit-shaming
A problematic Kennedy
A criminal president’s supreme court nominee being exposed as a mediocre southerner whose only firm conviction is white supremacy, getting defended by an unperturbedly anti-semitic republican senator saying, “Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”

Even the auction itself, a couple of loosies being stripped and sold off piecemeal, feels topical: people don’t buy 26-print portfolios these days anymore than they read newspapers. And yet the politics and the challenges remain the same.

3 Apr 2025, Lot 283: Robert Rauschenberg, from the [Features from] Currents Portfolio, est. $1,000-1,500 [wright20]
Related: Features from Currents, 1970; Surfaces from Currents, 1970 [moma]