Differences and Samenesses: Jasper Johns Decoys - Exhibition Opening & Lecture

“In a sense, one does the same thing two ways and can observe differences and samenesses…I can understand that someone else might find that boring and repetitious, but that’s not the way I see it.” -Jasper Johns in conversation with Christian Geelhaar, 1979 In the work of Jasper Johns, “decoy” is both a noun and a verb. It is also a title: one that Johns chose for two print editions and two paintings between 1971 and 1973. Differences and Samenesses: Jasper Johns Decoys is an exhibition about Jasper Johns’ Decoys and about how Jasper Johns decoys, which is to lure, misdirect, and capture attention. This exhibition considers the artist’s career-long preoccupations with doubling, ambiguity, and trompe l’oeil to suggest that Decoy opens up ways of seeing the “differences and samenesses” between things that appear to be––but are not––the same.