In Photos: A Cache of 200 By no means-Earlier than-Seen Pictures by Mail Artwork Founder Ray Johnson Reveal He Was Even Extra Radical Than We Thought

We’ve lastly obtained Ray Johnson’s dispatches from the opposite aspect. Final month, the Morgan Library & Museum opened “PLEASE SEND TO REAL LIFE,” an exhibition unearthing 200 never-before-seen images by Johnson, the founding father of the worldwide mail artwork community know because the New York Correspondence College, who died in 1995.

After finding out abstraction underneath Josef Albers on the well-known Black Mountain Faculty, Johnson left North Carolina for New York in 1948, together with professors John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Richard Lippold.

Although he was arrange for fame as a painter, he took Albers’s recommendation, in response to the Morgan, and burned his early works between 1954 and 1956, to make room for the miniature mass media collages he referred to as “moticos,” now hailed as precursors to Pop artwork.

Hazel Larsen Archer, Ray Johnson at Black Mountain Faculty (1948), gelatin silver print. The Morgan Library &Museum, Bought because the reward of David Dechmanand Michel Mercure, 2021.56. © Property of Hazel Larsen Archer.

Pictures was all the time a cornerstone of Johnson’s observe, but it surely wasn’t till 1992—20 years after leaving Manhattan for Lengthy Island—that he adopted a Fujifilm QuickSnap digital camera and instructed curator Clive Phillpot: “I’m pursuing my profession as a photographer.” Johnson would undergo 137 disposable cameras by December 1994.

Amongst his experiments with the favored medium, Johnson would snap works in photobooths, typically bringing in his cutout collages in creative cameos. Pictures might additionally enrich present works with new which means, similar to his “Film Stars” sequence of large-scale collages on corrugated cardboard, which regularly featured well-known faces. Out of doors Film Present in RJ’s yard (1 June 1993), for instance, sees these works lined up as if able to movie a scene, surrounded by the semi-autobiographical bunny character that was Johnson’s calling card.

Ray Johnson’s Picture Sales space Portraits (Sixties). Courtesy of the Ray Johnson Property. Digital picture courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum. Art work courtesy the Ray Johnson Property. © Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

In January 1995, Johnson killed himself by leaping off a bridge in Sag Harbor, drowning within the water beneath. “I believe Ray will change into well-known after his loss of life, as a result of he gained’t be round to impede the dissemination of his work,” remarked New York artwork seller Richard Feigen within the New York Occasions obituary that adopted.

Though he bristled in opposition to establishments attempting to indicate his work, there’s been an uptick in exhibitions culled from Johnson’s property within the many years that adopted his loss of life, together with reveals final 12 months on the Artwork Institute of Chicago and David Zwirner. Each targeted totally on Johnson’s collages and situating him amongst colleagues like John Cale and Joseph Cornell.

Greater than 5,000 shade images by Johnson have survived, many saved off view in envelopes. The Morgan present’s curator, Joel Smith, instructed Arnet Information that Johnson’s property donated the 200 on view now to the museum’s everlasting assortment in 2019, courtesy of artwork advisor Frances Beatty. Analysis on the works carried on by means of early 2020.

Elisabeth Novick, Untitled (Ray Johnson and Suzi Gablik) (1955), gelatin silver print, Courtesy of the Ray Johnson Property.

“The pandemic brought on adjustments in scheduling that pushed [the show] again to summer season 2022,” Smith stated. “Within the interim, we realized extra in regards to the images, and in addition acquired the 1948 {photograph} of Johnson by Hazel Larsen Archer that grew to become the earliest (and first) piece within the exhibition.”

Nonetheless, nobody is aware of for certain what Johnson meant to do with all of the movie he shot. “It could be trivial to hunt by means of this massive, complicated, typically comical, all the time private physique of labor for nothing greater than a rebus suicide notice,” Smith’s essay within the present’s catalog notes. “Ray Johnson by no means made himself that simply readable.”

Quick and intimate, Johnson’s work is in regards to the current second. Taking a prototype selfie in a store window mirror, Johnson holds up a bunny-eared collage studying: “PLEASE SEND TO REAL LIFE.” Possibly he meant the previous New York journal REALLIFE. Smith hears Johnson saying: “Right here, Life, take this factor I’ve made; I’m going to the opposite place.”

“PLEASE SEND TO REAL LIFE: Ray Johnson Pictures,” is on view on the Morgan Library & Museum, by means of October 2.

See extra photos from the exhibition right here.

Path of headshots and again steps (spring 1992). The Morgan Library & Museum. Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

RJ silhouette and wooden, Stehli Seashore (autumn1992). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Headshot and Elvises in RJ’s automobile (February 1993). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the RayJohnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.(ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol life dates on flowers (July 1992). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.

Jasper John (February 1993). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Bunny tree in yard (17 April 1993). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.

Harpo Marx bunny, headshot, and payphone (February 1994). The Morgan Library &Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Shadow and manhole (spring 1992). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.

4 Film Stars, Locust Valley Cemetery (31 March 1993). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Out of doors Film Present on RJ’s automobile (February 1993). The Morgan Library & Museum, Present of the Ray Johnson Property, courtesy of Frances Beatty. © Ray Johnson/Artists Rights Society (ARS),New York.

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