John Yau: Jasper Johns and the Damaged Human Body

Sparked by a statement by Jasper Johns about “broken” representations of the human physique, poet and art critic John Yau will explore the artist’s use of fragmentation in his work over the course of sixty years. This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns, in the Menil Drawing Institute. John Yau has authored The United States of Jasper Johns (1996), A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (2008), and a book of poetry titled Corpse and Mirror (1983). About John Yau John Yau is the author of thirteen books of poetry, including Radiant Silhouette: New & Selected Work 1974–1988 (1989) Borrowed Love Poems (2002) Ing Grish (2005) and, most recently, Bijoux in the Dark (2018). A fiction writer and art critic, he has also published monographs and books of criticism, including A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (2008), Catherine Murphy (2016) _Thomas Nozkowski, (2017), Philip Taaffe (2018), and The Wild Children of William Blake (2017). In 2018, he received the Jackson Poetry Prize, which is awarded annually to an American poet of exceptional talent who deserves wider recognition. Yau is Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University) and lives in New York. He is currently working on a book of essays, Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign and a new book of poems. Public Program of The Menil Collection, Houston, TX. January 9, 2019.