Untitled 2001

This ‘Untitled’ print was made by Jasper Johns, and it's like a visual puzzle he’s left for us to solve. I can imagine him in the studio, moving between these different images and textures like a DJ mixing tracks. The monochromatic tones give everything a ghostly feel. There's a family portrait, some stripes, a spiral, and a stained-glass window with a crab and maybe a dragon or something? It’s like Johns is saying, ‘Here are some things, now you figure out how they connect.’ I think he's trying to show us how meaning isn't fixed. It shifts and changes depending on how we look at things. I bet Johns was also looking at what Rauschenberg was doing at the time, smashing together high and low culture. But Johns does it in his own way. It’s like he’s whispering, ‘Art can be anything, even a bunch of images hanging out together on a piece of paper.'