When you ask John's why he did this or that in a painting, he answers so as to clear himself of responsibility. A given decision was made for him by the way things are, or was suggested by an accident he never invited.
Regarding the four casts of cases he placed in four oblong boxes over one of the targets:
Target with Four Faces, 1955
Q: Why did you cut them off just under the eyes?
A: They wouldn't have fitted into the boxes if I'd left them whole.
He was asked why his bronze sculpture of an electric bulb was broken up into bulb, socket, and cord:
A: Because, when the parts came back from the foundry, the bulb
wouldn't screw into the socket.
Q: Could you have had it done over?
A: I could have.
Q: Then you like it in fragments and you chose to leave it that way?
A: Of course.
The distinction I try to make between necessity and subjective preference seems unintelligible to Johns. I asked him about the type of numbers and letters he uses -- coarse, standardized, unartistic -- the type you associate with packing cases and grocery signs.
Number Five, 1960
Q: You nearly always use this same type. Any particular reason?
A: That's how the stencils come.
Q: But if you preferred another typeface, would you think it improper to cut your own stencils?
A: Of course not.
Q: Then you really do like these best?
A: Yes.
This answer is so self-evident that I wonder why I asked the question at all; ah yes -- because Johns would not see the obvious distinction between free choice and external necessity. Let me try again:
Q: Do you use these letter types because you like them or because that's how the stencils come?
A: But that's what I like about them, that they come that way.
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