ABSTRACT
Late in January 1958, the Leo Castelli Gallery, at 4 East Seventy-seventh Street, presented Jasper Johns's first solo exhibition. His Flag (1954-55), a canvas just over five feet long, displays the Stars and Stripes with deadpan accuracy. Another painting sets the flag afloat on a field of orange. White Flag (1955) is, of course, all white. On square canvases called Targets, concentric circles appear in sets of five. Along the upper edge of Target with Four Faces (1955) runs a row of four compartments, each containing a plaster cast of a face. The faces are identical, expressionless, cut off at the cheekbones. The compartments of Target with Plaster Casts (1955) contain plaster bodyparts—ear, toes, penis, nose, hand, a nipple with a section of breast, the lower half of a face. On other canvases, grids are filled by the alphabet, one letter to an opening, or the numbers—zero to nine. Smallish canvases contain a single biggish number or letter.
