The Collected Links of Ray Johnson - #1

A ways back, I posted an entry about starting a couple of recurring artist series, the first of which commenced that evening on Raymond Pettibon. Perhaps the series itself could have been titled "The Two Rays" seeing as the other artist, for whom this post finally signifies the beginning of his own series*, is Ray Johnson. Chances are you have never heard of him. But once you get a taste of his work and start to grasp his position in the New York art world in the second half of the 20th Century, you realize that herein lies the missing link that ties everything together.

I have posted about Ray before here. That posting was commented on* by one Bill Wilson, a former stagehand of Ray's who followed up days later with an email asking me for my snail mail address so he could send me "Ray Johnsonalia". To which, of course, I complied and for my efforts was rewarded with a fairly substantial envelope containing a number of postcard reproductions, exhibit invites and essays on Ray Johnson.

All of which I am planning to finally get around to scanning and posting as part of this series. In the meantime, tonight's first entry takes form as a stumbled upon flickr group called "New York Correspondence School".

 

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Communication as Art

At the end of the fifties, at time when the bohemians still ruled the East Village, a New York artist named Ray Johnson began corresponding w/ the others of the Avant Garde scene through a prolific series of collages that he sent through the post. These collages, which Johnson labelled "moticos", created a network with thousands of fellow artists around the world, laid the foundations for Pop Art and came to be known as The New York Correspondence School. And yet despite this influential position Johnson, once considered to be"the most famous unknown artist in America", remained an enigmatic figure residing determinedly in the underground; far beyond the gallery circuit; known of by many but never known very well by anyone.

Johnson's life and work is the subject of the documentary "How to Draw a Bunny" (2002) which frames its retrospective between the mysterious events of January 13th, 1995 when Johnson's body was found floating in Sag Harbour. To this day, no one has determined what happened. Some say it was suicide, his "final performance" that, as with his life, Ray Johnson tackled death under his own conditions.