Untitled
Not on view
Encompassing key motifs that have preoccupied Johns for more than fifty years, Untitled comprises three distinct bands: the top register contains numbers running from zero to nine, the center features a map of the United States, and the bottom presents the alphabet in American Sign Language. The irregular pools of gray and black tones represent Johns’s attempt to capture the aesthetic of ink on plastic—a material he has used in his drawings since 1962—in a print. This is the first work Johns created exclusively with digital technology. He drew the various components, including his signature, on different sheets that Bill Goldston of U.L.A.E. (Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc., the Long Island printing studio and publisher where Johns began what would become an important part of his oeuvre) then combined digitally for the artist’s approval.