Quotes by Jasper Johns

“I tend to like things that already exist.”

“Ideas either come or they dont come.”

“Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another.”

I dont want my work to be an exposure of my feelings.

Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old.

Art is either a complaint or appeasement.

My experience with life is that its very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences. I guess, in painting, it would amount to different kinds of space being represented in it.

I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you cant avoid saying.

In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings about myself and party due to my feelings about painting at the time. I sort of stuck to my guns for a while but eventually it seemed like a losing battle. Finally one must simply drop the reserve.

A not complete unit or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together.One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of thought. It is not thought which needs showing.

I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didnt matter – that would be my life.

As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a confusion, or a freedom.

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I dont think thats a painters business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.

I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.

One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space.

When something is new to us, we treat it as an experience. We feel that our senses are awake and clear. We are alive.

I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.

My experience of life is that its very fragmented; certain kinds of things happen, and in another place, a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences.

I am not strong on perfection.

As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.