Saturday, July 2, 2011

Ray's Boxes


For those of you following this blog regularly, you are well aware of artist Ray Johnson's use of the postal system as part of his art performance. The act of mailing art and having it arrive on the doorstep of a lucky recipient was the key to his NY Correspondence School. And it wasn't just artwork that was often sent. Boxes filled with odds and ends from junk drawers, postcards, tennis balls, bric-a-brack were sent to special friends-- somewhat like receiving a Joseph Cornell piece in a cardboard box. Last week at Esopus in NYC, collagist Bob Warner shared with the viewing public the three boxes he had received from Ray before Ray's death in 1995. By unpacking, and then repacking the boxes, Warner resurrected Ray's ability to turn even the simplest, everyday act into a full-blown performance art piece.
photo by Louise Millmann, film by Nicholas Maravell

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