Painted Bronze (Banks of Ale Ballentein)

Mediums: bronze, enamel.
Location: private collection.

The sculpture consisting of two beer cans cast in bronze can be called the “readymade vice versa”. While Marcel Duchamp used ready-made objects to make them objects of art, Jasper Johns, on the contrary, turned these objects into original bronze statues, as classical masters did. There is a legend that an ardent opponent of pop art, Willem de Kooning, said that Johns could sell anything, even a couple of empty beer bottles. Hearing this, the artist decided that this was a good idea, and did work on such a trivial subject as cans.