Summer (Blue) [one reversed proof printed in black, unsigned, undesignated, ulae chop] 1991

Editor: Here we have Jasper Johns's 1991 mixed-media print, "Summer (Blue)." The muted black and white tones give it this ghostly, almost dreamlike quality. What do you make of the fragmented imagery in this piece? Curator: Oh, "Summer (Blue)" – a palimpsest of memory, really. Johns layers images like geological strata. A human figure presses against what appears to be a brick wall on one side, juxtaposed with more ambiguous Americana on the other - a drum, the flag. What strikes me is the incompleteness, the obscured details. Makes you wonder what he's intentionally withholding, doesn't it? Like a half-remembered song. Editor: It's like two separate images stitched together... I almost get a feeling of dissonance? Like two things are conflicting each other? Curator: Absolutely, dissonance! That tension is pure Johns. He often used familiar imagery - flags, targets - to deconstruct the very act of seeing. The everyday, turned strange. Look at how he uses texture, the layering of ink. Each mark, each fragment, whispers a different story. Is it about patriotism? Loss? The decay of memory? It's all wonderfully uncertain. Does it make you think about your own summers? Editor: Now that you mention it, yeah, maybe the fleeting quality of summer itself? The way memories get fractured. Curator: Precisely! Johns invites us to actively participate, to piece together our own narratives. He offers a puzzle with no single solution, and I find that so deeply moving. It shows me, with grace, to make sense of things that don't quite coalesce, to create a narrative of something incomplete. Editor: I get what you mean... like embracing the unresolved. This makes a lot of sense to me. I guess I should try that in art class!