December 2005
Tracking and Tracing Installation
The Seasons exhibits Jasper Johns's distinctive use of commonplace objects and emblematic images, such as flags or numbers, as the starting-point for works of great richness and complexity. Created in 1990, the etching is part of a cycle that started in 1985 with four paintings on the theme. Johns's used the same subject matter and iconography in a series of etchings made from 1987 to 1991. The set of plates used for the entire run of etchings, reworked for all the versions, documents the changes and transformations to the original plates. Using iconography taken from, among other sources, Johns's own artistic history, this body of work-collectively known as The Seasons-has been read as an allegory of the artist's life and a catalogue raisonné of his past work, as well as a meditation into the passage of time, memory, and meaning.
In 2005 Kevin and Tamara Kinsella set up a discretionary fund to benefit the curatorial departments at SDMA. The Seasons was purchased by the curator of contemporary art at a benefit auction for inSite_05, a bi-national project of contemporary art about the San Diego and Tijuana border region.
Last Updated: 2/14/2020