Untitled (proof 1/3) 1988

This is a proof, one of three, of an untitled print by Jasper Johns. Look closely. The magic here is in the making, the working through of an image. It feels like Johns is thinking aloud, and we get to listen in. The image is broken into a grid, and each little vignette is rendered in black and white. The textures are so rich, like velvet shadows. See that dark patch with the pale angular form? It is an elbow. The form is roughly hewn with a scratchy kind of mark making. It’s like the ghost of an elbow. A shadow of a limb. Johns always makes me think of Rauschenberg. They both treat artmaking as an open-ended process, a game. And in the end, art is play. A process of opening new ways of seeing, feeling, and thinking. There's no right or wrong. It's about making space for possibility.