John Yau once remarked to Jasper Johns that the materials he uses - newsprint, hot wax, bedsheets - must be a conservator's nightmare. 'Yes,' Johns responded. 'It's falling apart, just like me.'
Jasper Johns seemed to reject the tortured, in-the-moment 'I' of Abstract Expressionism, ironically commenting on the heroism and spontaneity associated with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in his early work.