Ray Johnson

Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson (16 October 1927 – 13 January 1995) was an American artist. Known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, he was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art and was described as "New York's most famous unknown artist". Johnson also staged and participated in early performance art events as the founder of a far-ranging mail art network – the New York Correspondence School – which picked up momentum in the 1960s and is still active today. He is occasionally associated with members of the Fluxus movement but was never a member. He lived in New York City from 1949 to 1968, when he moved to a small town in Long Island and remained there until his suicide.

Publications

• David Bourdon, Ray Johnson, et al., "The New York Correspondence School" , Artforum, Oct 1967.

• Ray Johnson Ray Johnson, New York: Between Books, 1977, 24 pp.

• John Willenbecher, Ray Johnson, Ray Johnson, Ray Johnson, New York: Between Books, 1978, 20 pp.

• Ray Johnson: Correspondences, ed. Donna De Salvo, Columbus, OH: Wexner Center for the Arts, 1999, 224 pp.

• Ray Johnson's Art World, ed. Elizabeth Zuba, New York: Feigen & Co., 2014, 32 pp.

• Not Nothing: Selected Writings by Ray Johnson, 1954-1994, ed. Elizabeth Zuba, Los Angeles: Siglio Press, 2014, 380 pp. Publisher.

• Stephen Moonie, "A Poet of “Non-ressentiment”? Lawrence Alloway, Ray Johnson, and the Art World as a Network", Getty Research Journal 8, 2016, pp 161-176.

• Kate Dempsey Martineau, Ray Johnson: Selective Inheritance, University of California Press, 2018, 304 pp. Publisher.

• That Was the Answer: Interviews with Ray Johnson, ed. Julie J. Thomson, Soberscove Press, 2018, 198 pp. Publisher.

• Frog Pond Splash: Collages by Ray Johnson with Texts by William S. Wilson, ed. Elizabeth Zuba, Catskill, NY: Siglio Press, 2020. [1]

• Ray Johnson c/o, eds. Caitlin Haskell and Jordan Carter, Yale University Press, with Art Institute of Chicago, 2021, 376 pp. Publisher.

• Please Send to Real Life: Ray Johnson Photographs, ed. Joel Smith, Mack Books, with Morgan Library & Museum, 2022, 256 pp.

• Miriam Kienle, Queer Networks: Ray Johnson's Correspondence Art, University of Minnesota Press, 2023, 296 pp. Publisher.

• Ellen Levy, A Book about Ray, MIT Press, 2024, 394 pp. Publisher.

• more

Links

• http://ubu.com/film/johnson.html
• http://ubu.com/sound/johnson_ray.html
• http://withhiddennoise.net/tag/ray-johnson/
• http://www.rayjohnsonestate.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWUxY-NoRIM
• http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/rayjohnson/
• http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/2928?locale=en
• http://collection.whitney.org/artist/658/RayJohnson
• http://www.artpool.hu/Ray/