The Fateful Attraction of Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch

Thomas Micchelli | Hyperallergic | 13th November 2016

Curatorial brows furrowed when it was realized that Jasper Johns had referenced Edvard Munch in his own work. Any such linkage seemed unlikely given their disparate styles. A resultant exhibition tries to show that, when the AIDS crisis was at its height, Munch may have helped inspire a “sea change” in Johns’ work. But all this analysis and conjecture only goes so far: the link, admits the writer, remains “fraught with ambiguity.”