Jasper Johns - Map
- Title: Map
- Artist: Jasper Johns (1930-)
- Date: 1961
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 200 × 313 cm
- Location: MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), New York City, NY, USA
Jasper Johns’s painting "Map" of 1961 is a picture of the map of the United States, an object which is extremely familiar as it is in every classroom of the United States. In the 1950s–60s, Jasper Johns became famous for creating paintings of images like flags, targets, numbers, and maps, that are icons that everybody can recognize instantly. His art is a mix of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.
"Map" is not an exact representation: the shapes and proportions of the states are basically correct and the names printed in capital letters of states and oceans are also correct but instead of of neat cartographic colors and lines, the surface is covered in thick strokes, the colors are mixed, there are paint drips and overlaps. By reinterpreting known icons, Jasper Johns encourages the viewer to question their own understanding.
My personal take here includes : What really is a border ; how precise and robust can it be? The colors (blue, red and yellow) can be associated with that used on election maps. The United States is a patchwork of diversity with strong opposites that are side-by-side and mix. Another perspective may be that the color mixing is messy and that the red dripping is like blood on the wall, indicating that the country is also built through a messy process and that the current state is not a final but everchanging state.