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

• 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.

Literature

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

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/