Curated by Douglas Druick and James Rondeau

Neither black nor white, but gray—the gray in affective states of “quietude” and “anticipation,” and in memory of those feelings; the gray that includes all expressive coloration—is the topic of this major exhibition of the work of Jasper Johns. And it is a truly significant approach to the art, which dwells in the semantics of conceptual skepticism as it ranges from grisaille to gray scale. Curators Douglas Druick and James Rondeau have selected 138 paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings from 1955 to the present to show Johns’s dedicated study of gray and to argue that through this approach we may come to understand more broadly his aesthetic concerns. The catalogue features essays by the curators and Richard Shiff as well as an interview with the artist by Nan Rosenthal. Travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Feb. 5–May 4, 2008.

— Marjorie Welish