Johns Said To Leave It Open

Jasper Johns, Target with Plaster Casts (JJCR P4), 1955, encaustic and collage on canvas and wood with objects, also with encaustic on them, apparently 52 x 44 1/4 in., bought by Leo Castelli, 1958, sold to David Geffen 1993, currently on loan to the Guggenheim Bilbao, I believe. Target with Plaster Casts (1955) has been vexing people since 1958 [or 1957, actually.] It’s the red-headed stepchild of Jasper Johns’s breakthrough work. Or maybe the green-dicked stepchild. The presence of body parts generally and a penis specifically have made critics’ questions seem especially awkward: What does it mean? What does it reveal about the artist? Oh wait, I didn’t mean that. But actually, does that mean the target’s a butt? And the penis has been causing curators problems from the beginning. Meyer Schapiro selected Target with Plaster Casts and Green Target to show at the Jewish Museum in 1957. Then the museum put the work in a literal closet until Johns agreed to add some “mystery” to it by…