A photo album celebrating this week of Jasper Johns's 95th birthday. A lifelong friend to Merce Cunningham and a lifelong supporter of the Cunningham Company, Johns served as artistic advisor from 1967 to 1989, both creating decor and commissioning other artists to do the same. His admiration for Cunningham was consummate, as was Cunningham's for him. Our scholar Nancy Dalva writes: No one saw Merce more clearly or was more aligned as a thinker and maker. Different materials, methods; but the same philosophy. No matter the apparent or possibly subliminal narrative, the dancing was about dancing and the painting was about painting. The materials and their manipulation--movement for Merce and with Jasper the various elements that comprised his art supplies--themselves being what character, plot, depiction and so forth once would have been in a more traditional scheme. They also both "busted" to use Merce's word out of the proscenium and out of the painting frame. They had a remarkable likeness of approach. Of Johns's grey works Cunningham said, "People think they are grey, but all the colors are underneath." Of Cunningham's dances Johns said, "Nothing Merce does is simple. Everything has a fascinating richness and multiplicity of direction." (photo details on each image, click to enlarge) (fb)

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