Editing Ray Johnson

{{Short description|American artist (1927–1995)}}
{{other people}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Ray Johnson
| image         = Ray Johnson.jpg
| imagesize     = 
| caption       = Johnson circa 1968
| birth_name    = Raymond Edward Johnson
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1927|10|16}}
| birth_place   = [[Detroit, Michigan]], U.S.
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1995|1|13|1927|10|16}}
| death_place   = [[Sag Harbor, New York]], U.S.
| field         = [[Intermedia]], [[conceptual art]], [[collage]]
| training      = 
| movement      = [[Mail art]], [[Fluxus]], [[neo-Dada]], [[pop art]]
| works         = 
| patrons       = 
| influenced by =
| influenced    =
| awards        = 
}}

'''Raymond Edward "Ray" Johnson''' (October 16, 1927 – January 13, 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 <ref name="artpool">{{Cite web|url=http://artpool.hu/Ray/index.html|title=Artpool's Ray Johnson Space|website=artpool.hu}}</ref><ref name="nytimes">[https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/19/obituaries/ray-johnson-67-pop-artist-known-for-his-work-in-collage.html "Ray Johnson, 67, Pop Artist Known for His Work in Collage"], by Carol Vogel, ''The New York Times'', January 19, 1995</ref> "New York's most famous unknown artist".<ref name="artpool" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Glueck |first=Grace |date=April 11, 1965 |title=What Happened? Nothing |url=https://www.rayjohnsonestate.com/attachment/en/6115ed1ce1743c7ca22a7462/Press/6322718c182399c5980087cb |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=Ray Johnson Estate}}</ref> 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 –<ref name="artpool" /><ref name="nytimes" /><ref name="1stdigital" /> 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.<ref name="1stdigital">Bloch, Mark. [http://www.panmodern.com/Ray.html "An Illustrated Introduction to Ray Johnson 1927-1995"], 1995</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=I Is an Other: The Mail Art of Ray Johnson|url=https://hyperallergic.com/230800/i-is-an-other-the-mail-art-of-ray-johnson/|website=Hyperallergic|access-date=4 July 2017|date=22 August 2015}}</ref>

==Early years and education==

Born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 16, 1927,<ref name="artpool" /><ref name="1stdigital" /> Ray Johnson grew up in a working-class neighborhood and attended [[Cass Technical High School]] where he was enrolled in the advertising art program. He took weekly classes at the Detroit Art Institute and spent a summer drawing at [[Ox-Bow School]] in [[Saugatuck, Michigan]], affiliated with the [[Art Institute of Chicago]].

Johnson left Detroit after high school in the summer of 1945 to attend the progressive [[Black Mountain College]] (BMC) in North Carolina,<ref name="1stdigital" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Journal |date=2011-07-24 |title=Reading Ray 1 by Johanna Gosse |url=https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/volume2/vanderbeek/johanna-gosse-2/ |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center |language=en}}</ref> where he stayed for the next three years (spending the spring 1946 semester at the [[Art Students League]] in New York but returning the following summer). [[Josef Albers]], before and after his notable sabbatical in Mexico, was in residence at Black Mountain College for six of the ten semesters that Johnson studied there. [[Anni Albers]], [[Walter Gropius]], [[Lyonel Feininger]], [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Ossip Zadkine]], [[Paul Rand]], [[Alvin Lustig]], [[Ilya Bolotowski]], [[Jacob Lawrence]], [[Beaumont Newhall]], [[M. C. Richards]], and [[Jean Varda]] also taught at BMC during Johnson's time there. Johnson decided on Albers' advice to stay at BMC for a final term in summer 1948, when the visiting faculty included [[John Cage]], [[Merce Cunningham]], [[Willem de Kooning]], [[Buckminster Fuller]], and [[Richard Lippold]].<ref name="artpool" /> Johnson took part in "The Ruse of Medusa" – the culmination of Cunningham's Satie Festival - with Cage, Cunningham, Fuller, Willem and [[Elaine de Kooning]], Lippold, [[Ruth Asawa]], Arthur Penn, and others among the cast and crew. "Because of those who participated, the event has taken on the reputation of a watershed event in 'mixed media{{'"}} wrote [[Martin Duberman]] in his history of BMC.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Duberman |first=Martin B. |url=http://archive.org/details/blackmountainexp0000dube_v2j9 |title=Black Mountain : an exploration in community |date=2009 |location=Evanston, Ill.  |publisher= Northwestern University Press |isbn=978-0-8101-2594-0}}</ref>

In the documentary ''[[How to Draw a Bunny]]'', [[Richard Lippold]] delicately but candidly confesses to carrying on a love affair with Johnson for many years which began at Black Mountain College.

<blockquote>I risk to say, [that at [[Black Mountain College]]] 'anything went'&mdash;between the students and the faculty ... As I said to my wife the other day, 'I think I'm a good old man now, but I was a very bad boy.' ... She agreed. We had a little house, my family and me, and he would arrive every morning with a little bouquet of wild flowers, and singing. Eventually our relationship became very intimate, so I brought him back to New York ... and obviously, we didn't live together, steadily, because I had my family. We were quite close together until 1974, so that's a long period of time. From '48 to '74, twenty some years. Because it was a very intimate relationship, a loving relationship. And it would be very hard for me to separate him as a person from his work. I don't think I could do that.<ref>{{cite AV media|last=Walter|first=John|title=How to Draw a Bunny|title-link=How to Draw a Bunny|year=2002|publisher=Palm Pictures|time=22–24 mins}}</ref></blockquote>

==New York years==

Johnson moved with Richard Lippold to New York City by early 1949,<ref name="artpool" /> rejoining Cage and Cunningham and befriending, within the next couple of years, [[Robert Rauschenberg]], [[Jasper Johns]], [[Cy Twombly]], [[Ad Reinhardt]], [[Stan Vanderbeek]], [[Norman Solomon]], [[Lucy Lippard]], [[Sonia Sekula]], [[Carolyn Brown (choreographer)|Carolyn Brown]] and [[Earle Brown]], [[Judith Malina]], [[Diane di Prima]], [[Julian Beck]], [[Remy Charlip]], [[James Waring]], and innumerable others. With the [[American Abstract Artists]] group, Johnson painted geometric abstractions that, in part, reflected the influence of Albers.<ref name="artpool" /> But by 1953 he turned to collage and left the American Abstract Artists, rejecting his early paintings, which it is rumored that he later burned in Cy Twombly's fireplace. Johnson began to create small, irregularly shaped works incorporating fragments from popular culture, most notably the Lucky Strikes logo and images from fan magazines of such movie stars as [[Elvis Presley]], [[James Dean]], [[Marilyn Monroe]], and [[Shirley Temple]].<ref name="nytimes" /><ref name="1stdigital" /> In the summer of 1955, he coined a term for these small collages: "moticos".<ref name="artpool" /><ref name="1stdigital" /> He carried boxes of moticos around New York, showing them on sidewalks, at cafes, in Grand Central Station and other public places; he asked passersby what they thought of them, and recorded some of their responses. He began mailing collages to friends and strangers, along with a series of manifestos, mimeographed for distribution, including "What is a Moticos?", excerpts of which were published in an article by [[John Wilcock]] in the inaugural issue of ''[[The Village Voice]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ray Johnson - Moticos - Village Voice |url=https://warholstars.org/ray-johnson-moticos.html |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=warholstars.org}}</ref>

A friend of Johnson's, art critic [[Suzi Gablik]], brought photographer [[Elisabeth Novick]] to document an installation of dozens of Johnson's moticos in autumn of 1955. (Most of these were destroyed or recycled by the artist.) "The random arrangement, on a dilapidated cellar door in Lower Manhattan may even have been the first informal Happening," she recalled later.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/popartusukconnec0000unse |title=Pop art : U.S./U.K. connections, 1956-1966 |date=2001 |location=Houston, Tex. |publisher=Menil Collection in association with Hatje Cantz Publishers |isbn=978-0-939594-51-1}}</ref> According to [[Henry Geldzahler]], "[Ray's] collages ''Elvis Presley No. 1'' and ''James Dean'' stand as the Plymouth Rock of the Pop movement."<ref>[[Henry Geldzahler|Geldzahler, Henry]] in ''Pop Art: 1955–1970'' catalogue, [[Art Gallery of New South Wales]], Sydney, 1985</ref> Johnson's friend [[Lucy Lippard]] would later write that "The Elvis ... and Marilyn Monroe [collages], heralded Warholian Pop."<ref>Lippard, Lucy in Correspondences catalogue, Wexner Center/Whitney Museum, 2000</ref> Johnson was quickly recognized as part of the nascent Pop generation. A note about the cover image in January 1958's ''Art News'' pointed out that "[Jasper] Johns' first one-man show ... places him with such better-known colleagues as Rauschenberg, Twombly, Kaprow and Ray Johnson".<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/sim_artnews_1958-01_56_9 |title=Art News 1958-01: Vol 56 Iss 9 |date=January 1958 |publisher=Brant Publications Incorporated |language=English}}</ref>

Johnson worked part-time at the [[Orientalia Bookstore]] in the [[Lower East Side]] as he began to deepen his understanding of Zen philosophy and to employ "chance" in his work. Both of these interests increasingly informed his collages, performances, and mail art. Johnson also found occasional work as a graphic designer. He had met [[Andy Warhol]] by 1956; both designed several book covers for [[New Directions Publishing|New Directions]] and other publishers. Johnson had a series of whimsical flyers advertising his design services printed via offset lithography, and began mailing these out. These were joined in 1956–7 by two small promotional artists' books, {{Not a typo|''BOO/K/OF/THE/MO/NTH''}} and {{Not a typo|''P/EEK/A/BOO/K/OFTHE/WEE/K''}}, self-published in editions of 500.

Johnson participated in about a dozen performance art events between 1957 and 1963 – in his own short pieces (''Funeral Music for Elvis Presley'' and ''Lecture on Modern Music''), in those of others (by [[James Waring]] and [[Susan Kaufman]]), and via his own compositions performed by his colleagues at [[The Living Theatre]] and during the Fluxus Yam Festival of 1963. From 1961 on, Johnson periodically staged events he called "Nothings", described to his friend William Wilson as "an attitude as opposed to a happening", which would parallel the "Happenings" of [[Allan Kaprow]] and later Fluxus events. The first of these, "Nothing by Ray Johnson", was part of a weekly series of events in July 1961 at the [[AG Gallery]], a venue in New York operated by [[George Maciunas]] and [[Almus Salcius]]; [[Yoko Ono]]'s first solo show was on view in the gallery at the time.  [[Ed Plunkett]] later recalled entering an empty room. "Visitors began to enter the premises. Most of them looked quite dismayed that nothing was going on ... Well, finally Ray arrived ... and he brought with him a large corrugated cardboard box of wooden spools. Soon after arriving Ray emptied this box of spools down the staircase ... with these ... one had to step cautiously to avoid slipping ... I was delighted with this gesture."<ref>Plunkett, Ed. unpublished typescript</ref>{{better source needed|date=February 2020}} Johnson's Second Nothing took place at [[Playwrights Horizons|Maidman Playhouse]], New York, in 1962. It was part of a variety show that was organized by [[Nicholas Cernovich]] and [[Alan Marlow]] of [[New York Poet's Theatre]], had lighting design by [[Billy Name]] (aka [[Billy Linich]]), and featured artists such as [[Fred Herko]], [[George Brecht]], [[Simone Morris]], [[La Monte Young]], [[Stan Vanderbeek]], and others.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Journal |date=2011-05-15 |title=To Ray J, George Brecht Knows, George Brecht's Nose by Julie J. Thomson |url=https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/volume2/julie-j-thomson-2/ |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center |language=en}}</ref>  In 1964/65, Ray Johnson circulated publicity for an imaginary gallery called the Robin Gallery, which was a pun on the [[Rueben Gallery]] where some of the earliest happenings took place and was said by one critic to “put the happenings out on the street in a series of irresponsible exploits and escapades."<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Village Voice |date=1965-04-08 |via=Google News |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=KEtq3P1Vf8oC&dat=19650408&printsec=frontpage&hl=en |access-date=2024-04-26}}</ref>

Johnson's first known piece of mail directing a recipient to "please send to..." someone else dates from 1958; the phrases "please add to and return", "please add and send to", and even "please do not send to" followed. Johnson's mail art activities became more systematic with the help of several friends, particularly Bill Wilson and his mother, assemblage artist [[May Wilson]], along with [[Marie Tavroges Stilkind]] and later [[Toby Spiselman]]. In 1962, Ed Plunkett named Johnson's endeavors 'the New York Correspondence School' (NYCS). In early 1962, [[Joseph Byrd]] responded to several mailings with a red rubber stamp, "THIS IS NOT ART," which Johnson then used in his mailings for several months. On April 1, 1968, the first of the meeting of the NYCS was held at the [[Society of Friends]] Meeting House on [[Rutherford Place]] in New York City. Two more meetings were called by Johnson in the following weeks, including the Seating-Meeting at New York's [[Finch College]], about which [[John Gruen]] reported: "It was ... attended by many artists and 'members' ... all of whom sat around wondering when the meeting would start. It never did ... people wrote things on bits of paper, on a blackboard, or simply talked. It was all strangely meaningless – and strangely meaningful."<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=puECAAAAMBAJ |title=New York Magazine |date=1968-06-24 |language=en}}</ref> Johnson staged such events regularly, often following them up with witty typed reports, photocopied for wide distribution via the post. Such gatherings continued to be held in various guises into the mid-1980s.

Johnson produced 13 known unbound pages of his enigmatic ''A Book About Death'' from 1963 to 1965. Consisting of cryptic texts and drawings (mostly) by Johnson, they were mailed a few at a time, randomly, and offered for sale via a classified ad in ''[[The Village Voice]]''.,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-12-18 |title=A Book About A Book About Death by Ray Johnson and William S. Wilson (digitized in full) |url=https://williamswilsonwritings.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/a-book-about-a-book-about-death-by-ray-johnson-and-william-s-wilson-digitized-in-full/ |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=William S. Wilson : Collected Writings |language=en}}</ref> thus very few people ever received all the pages. [[Something Else Press]] published Johnson's ''The Paper Snake'' for a wider audience in 1965. Remarking about himself and the book, Johnson said:
<blockquote>I'm an artist and a, well, I shouldn't call myself a poet but other people have. What I do is classify the words as poetry. ... ''The Paper Snake'' ... is all my writings, rubbings, plays, things that I had given to the publisher, [[Dick Higgins]], editor and publisher, which I mailed to him or brought to him in cardboard boxes or shoved under his door, or left in his sink, or whatever, over a period of years. He saved all these things, designed and published a book, and I simply as an artist did what I did without classification. So when the book appeared the book stated, "Ray Johnson is a poet", but I never said, "this is a poem", I simply wrote what I wrote and it later became classified.<ref>Johnson, Ray with Diane Spodarek and Randy Delbeke. [http://www.jpallas.com/hh/rj/DAMintervw-RayJ.html "Ray Johnson interview"], ''Detroit Artists Monthly'', February 1968, via jpallas.com</ref></blockquote>

Long out of print, ''The Paper Snake'' was re-printed by [[Siglio Press]] in 2014.<ref>[http://sigliopress.com/book/the-paper-snake/ ''The Paper Snake''] Siglio Press</ref>

On June 3, 1968 – the same day that Andy Warhol was shot by [[Valerie Solanas]] with a gun she'd stored under May Wilson's bed – Johnson was mugged at knifepoint.<ref>Bloch, Mark. [http://www.panmodern.com/ray-abc/rayjohnson_abc_bloch.html "Leap of Faith"], ABCnews.com. 1999. via panmodern.com.</ref> Two days later, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Severely shaken, Johnson moved to [[Glen Cove, New York|Glen Cove]], Long Island, and the next year bought a house in nearby Locust Valley, where [[Richard Lippold]] and his family resided. He began to live in a state of increasing reclusion in what he called a "small white farmhouse with a [[Joseph Cornell]] attic."

Johnson appeared twice in the ''Art in Process'' series, described by blogger Greg Allen as "a series of topical, process-oriented, teaching exhibitions organized by Finch College Museum director [[Elayne Varian]]. They included sketches, models and studies to show how the artist did what he was doing."<ref>Allen, Greg, [https://greg.org/archive/2011/01/26/art-in-process-reading-finch-college-museum.html "Art In Process: Reading Finch College Museum"], January 26, 2011</ref>

==Locust Valley years==
[[File:Untitled (Seven Black Feet with Eyelashes by Ray Johnson.JPG|thumb|right|400px|''Untitled (Seven Black Feet with Eyelashes)'', by Ray Johnson, 1982–1991, [[Honolulu Museum of Art]]]]

From 1966 into the mid-1970s, Johnson's work was shown at the [[Willard Gallery]] (New York) and [[Feigen Gallery]] (Chicago and New York), as well as by [[Angela Flowers]] in London and [[Arturo Schwarz]] in Milan. In 1970, mail from 107 participants to curator Marcia Tucker was exhibited in a Ray Johnson – New York Correspondence School exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York – a significant moment of cultural validation for Johnson.<ref name="artpool" /><ref name="1stdigital" /> Another notable exhibition followed – Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, 1976, organized by Richard Craven: 81 lenders' works, 35 years of Johnson's outgoing mail. Around that time, Johnson began his silhouette project, creating approximately 200 profiles of personal friends, artists, and celebrities which became the basis for many of his later collages. His subjects included [[Chuck Close]], Andy Warhol, William S. Burroughs, Edward Albee, [[Louise Nevelson]], [[Larry Rivers]], [[Lynda Benglis]], [[Nam June Paik|Nam Jume Paik]], [[David Hockney]], [[David Bowie]], [[Christo]], [[Peter Hujar]], [[Roy Lichtenstein]], [[Paloma Picasso]], [[James Rosenquist]], [[Richard L. Feigen|Richard Feigen]], among others – a who's who of the New York arts and letters scene.

During the 1980s Johnson purposefully receded from view, cultivating his role as outsider, maintaining personal connections via mail art and telephone largely in place of physical interaction. In 1981, he began a longstanding correspondence with librarian and artists' book specialist, [[Clive Phillpot]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=BOMB Magazine {{!}} Clive Phillpot |url=https://bombmagazine.org/articles/clive-phillpot/ |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=BOMB Magazine |language=en}}</ref> Only a handful of people were ever allowed into his house in [[Locust Valley]]. Eventually, Johnson ceased to exhibit or sell his work commercially altogether. His underground reputation bubbled beneath the surface into the 1980s and 90s despite his general absence from the flourishing New York art scene. Johnson feverishly continued to work on richer and more complex collages, such as ''Untitled (Seven Black Feet with Eyelashes)'', in the collection of the [[Honolulu Museum of Art]].  It demonstrates the artist's incorporation of text into collage, which is his preferred medium.<ref>Honolulu Museum of Art, wall label, ''Untitled (Seven Black Feet with Eyelashes)'', accession 2016-12-01</ref> In contrast to his physical seclusion, Johnson's pre-digital network of correspondents increased in size exponentially.

==Death==

On January 13, 1995, Johnson was seen diving off a bridge in [[Sag Harbor]], Long Island, and backstroking out to sea.<ref name="artpool" /><ref name="1stdigital" /> His body washed up on the beach the following day. Many aspects of his death involved the number "13": the date; his age, 67 (6+7=13); the room number of a motel he had checked into earlier that day, 247 (2+4+7=13), etc. Some continue to speculate about a 'last performance' aspect of Johnson's drowning. Hundreds of collages were found carefully arranged in his home. He left no will and his estate is now administered by fine art dealership [[Adler Beatty]].<ref name="estate">{{Cite web|url=http://www.rayjohnsonestate.com/index.php|title=Ray Johnson Estate|website=www.rayjohnsonestate.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Institution |first=Smithsonian |title=A performance-art death |url=https://www.si.edu/object/performance-art-death%3AAAADCD_item_13559 |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=Smithsonian Institution |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Tashjian|first1=Rachel|title=Meet Ray Johnson, the Greatest Artist You've Never Heard Of|url=http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/01/ray-johnson-art-pranks|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=21 January 2015 |access-date=4 July 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Harvey |first=Dennis |date=2002-02-09 |title=How to Draw a Bunny |url=https://variety.com/2002/film/awards/how-to-draw-a-bunny-1117916955/ |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Film, television and music==
Over seven hours of videos with Ray were created by Nicholas Maravell in the late 1980s. Ray greatly enjoyed the creative process of making them and liked viewing them. Ray had wanted the videos to be played at his final scheduled gallery exhibition but at the last minute he had reason to cancel that show and he asked that the videos not be shown. These wishes were honored after Ray's death even when the gallery owner tried repeatedly to have Maravell show them. Portions of the videos have been used by several filmmakers. A Sampler of them played at Ray's Whitney Museum retrospective after Ray's death. Robert Rodger created a website to honor and help share these videos.

Following his suicide, filmmakers [[Andrew L. Moore|Andrew Moore]] and John Walter (in conjunction with [[Frances Beatty]] of [[Richard L. Feigen]] & Co.) spent six years probing the mysteries of Johnson's life and art.  Their collaboration yielded the award-winning documentary ''[[How to Draw a Bunny]]'', released in 2002. The film includes interviews with artists Chuck Close, James Rosenquist, Billy Name, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Judith Malina, and many others.<ref name="blackmountain">{{Cite web|url=http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/programs/past/138-how-to-draw-a-bunny|title=How to draw a bunny by John Walter and Andrew Moore}}</ref>

The [[Manic Street Preachers]] wrote and recorded a song about Johnson, titled "Locust Valley." Released as a B-side on the "[[Found That Soul]]" single (2001), "Locust Valley" describes Johnson as "famously unknown/elusive and dismantled".

[[John Cale]]'s song "Hey Ray" from the ''[[Extra Playful]]'' EP (2011) is about Cale's encounters with Johnson in New York during the 1960s.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SiC8GrTtes&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AVGxdCwVVULXc9knIMP-EqofBVmngBld7D| title = Hey Ray| author = John Cale| date = February 9, 2011| access-date = March 13, 2012| publisher = YouTube.com}}</ref><ref name="heyray">{{Cite web|url=https://thequietus.com/articles/07147-john-cale-interview-velvet-underground|title=The Quietus &#124; Features &#124; A Quietus Interview &#124; A Will Of Iron: John Cale Interviewed|website=The Quietus}}</ref>

Canadian art rock band [[Women (band)|Women]]'s 2010 album ''[[Public Strain]]'' includes two songs that directly reference Ray Johnson. Locust Valley is the town where Johnson lived in New York State. Venice Lockjaw is a phrase Johnson incorporated in pins that he made to be given away at the Ubi Fluxus ibi Motus exhibit in 1990 at the [[Venice Biennale]]. Their 2008 album ''[[Women (album)|Women]]'' also featured a song called Sag Harbor Bridge, referencing the place of Johnson's death.

==Exhibition history==
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Posthumous exhibitions
!Name
!Duration
!Location
!Activity
!Solo/Group
|-
|Ray Johnson. Please Add to and Return
|2009
|[[Raven Row|Ravens Row]]
|Closed
|Solo
|-
|Ray Johnson and Friends
|2014
|[[Printed Matter, Inc.|Printed Matter]]
|Closed
|Group
|-
|Ray Johnson Designs
|2014
|[[Museum of Modern Art|The Museum of Modern Art]]
|Closed
|Solo
|-
|PLEASE RETURN TO - Mail Art From the Ray Johnson Archive
|2015
|[https://www.rayjohnsonestate.com/exhibitions/please-return-to2 Richard L. Feigen and Company]
|Closed
|Solo
|-
|Pushing the Envelope
|2018–2019
|[[Archives of American Art]]
|Closed
|Group
|-
|Ray Johnson: What A Dump
|2021
|[https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2021/ray-johnson-what-a-dump David Zwerner Gallery]
|Closed
|Solo
|-
|Ray Johnson c/o
|2021–2022
|[[Art Institute of Chicago|The Art Institute of Chicago]]
|Closed
|Solo
|-
|PLEASE SEND TO REAL LIFE: Ray Johnson Photographs
|2022
|[https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/ray-johnson The Morgan Library and Museum]
|Closed
|Solo
|-
|Ray Johnson: Paintings and Collages 1950-66
|2024
|[http://www.craigstarr.com/exhibitions/ray-johnson-paintings-and-collages-1950-66#tab:slideshow Craig Starr Gallery]
|Open
|Solo
|-
|Ray Johnson
|2024
|[https://www.blum-gallery.com/exhibitions/ray_johnson Blum Gallery]
|Open
|Solo
|}
A temporary exhibition of Ray Johnson's work opened in 2021 at [[Art Institute of Chicago|The Art Institute of Chicago]], entitled ''Ray Johnson c/o.''<ref>{{Cite web |author=The Art Institute of Chicago |date=2021-11-26 |title=Ray Johnson c/o |url=https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9300/ray-johnson-c-o |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=The Art Institute of Chicago}}</ref> The exhibition showed the relationship of Ray Johnson's work to mail art, and the spirit of collaboration and connection that influenced the dispersal of much of his work.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-11-24 |title=Anti-establishment artist Ray Johnson celebrated in Art Institute of Chicago exhibition |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/11/24/anti-establishment-artist-ray-johnson-celebrated-in-art-institute-of-chicago-exhibition |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=The Art Newspaper - International art news and events}}</ref> Utilizing collection donated to [[Art Institute of Chicago|The Art Institute of Chicago]] by Bill Wilson, a lifelong acquaintance of Johnsons,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zuba |first=Elizabeth |date=2020-11-20 |title=The Beauty of Artistic Correspondence Through Collage: Ray Johnson and William S. Wilson |url=https://lithub.com/the-beauty-of-artistic-correspondence-through-collage-ray-johnson-and-william-s-wilson/ |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}</ref> as well as other who harbored Ray Johnsons circulated art, the exhibition showcased the largest collection on public display since the artists death.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Parola |first=Sofia Canale |date=2024-02-20 |title=Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Correspondence Art |url=https://www.artic.edu/articles/1100/signed-sealed-delivered-correspondence-art |access-date=2024-04-25 |website=The Art Institute of Chicago}}</ref> Items on display included the artists popular series of small cardboard collages called 'moticos,' as well as some of the artists earlier work during his time at [[Black Mountain College]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-06-10 |title="Who'll chop your suey when I'm gone?"—on Ray Johnson c/o at the Art Institute of Chicago |url=https://www.chicagoreview.org/wholl-chop-your-suey-when-im-gone-on-ray-johnson-c-o-at-the-art-institute-of-chicago/ |access-date=2024-04-26 |website=Chicago Review |language=en-US}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{commons category-inline}}
*[http://www.rayjohnsonestate.com Ray Johnson's Estate]
*[http://members.chello.nl/j.seegers1/flux_files/johnson.html Ray Johnson Resources]
*{{IMDb title|id=0303348|title=How to Draw a Bunny}}
*[http://www.warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/andy/warhol/articles/wilson/ray/johnson.html Ray Johnson and New York {{sic|nolink=y|Correspondance|expected=Correspondence}} School by William S. Wilson 1966]
*[http://www.rayjohnson.org/ The Ray Johnson Videos]
*[http://sigliopress.com/excerpt-introduction-nothing-selected-writings-ray-johnson/ Introduction to ''Not Nothing'' by Elizabeth Zuba]
*[http://www.macba.cat/controller.php?p_action=show_page&pagina_id=68&inst_id=28899&lang=ENG&PHPSESSID=7v520aitcsmufp0isbou08h7r4 Essay by Ina Blom] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716073953/http://www.macba.cat/controller.php?p_action=show_page&pagina_id=68&inst_id=28899&lang=ENG&PHPSESSID=7v520aitcsmufp0isbou08h7r4 |date=July 16, 2011 }}
*[http://www.mailart.be/ray_johnson.html R A Y  J O H N S O N]
*[http://sigliopress.com/book/the-paper-snake/ ''The Paper Snake''], Siglio Press
*[http://sigliopress.com/book/not-nothing/ ''Not Nothing''],  Siglio Press
*[https://library.udel.edu/special/findaids/view?docId=ead/mss0728.xml Ray Johnson mail art collection] held by [https://library.udel.edu/special/ Special Collections, University of Delaware]
*[https://www.gallery.ca/library/ngc004.html Ray Johnson Mail Art Collection] at the [[National Gallery of Canada]], Ottawa, Ontario

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[[Category:Black Mountain College alumni]]
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