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PUBLISHER
Matthew Marks Gallery

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 6.75 x 9 in. / 192 pgs / 82 color / 5 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
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DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2017 p. 65   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781944929114 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CDN $67.50 GBP £45.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

TERRITORY
WORLD

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MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY

Ray Johnson

Text by Brad Gooch.

Ray Johnson

Ray Johnson (1927–95) was a seminal Pop artist, a proto-conceptualist and a pioneer of mail art.

Always one to throw sand in the gears of art-world institutions, he tended to circulate his work either in truly alternative spaces (like sticking up out of the uneven floorboards of a warehouse downtown) or through the US Postal Service. Throughout his life, Johnson sent collages, drawings and less easily categorized forms of printed matter to friends, colleagues and strangers. Already in 1965, Grace Glueck described Johnson as “New York’s most famous unknown artist.”

Though his work resists efforts to pin it down, Johnson can be said to have found a particularly useful medium in collage. Collage allowed Johnson to reflect—but also to participate in—the modern collision of visual and verbal information that only became more frenzied as the 20th century wore on.

This volume collects 42 collages made by Johnson between 1966 and 1994, most never exhibited or published before, with a new essay by writer Brad Gooch, who first came into contact with Johnson when he began receiving unsolicited mail art shortly before the artist’s death. The collection of works in this volume shows the artist at his most expansive, combining art history with celebrity, word with image and the personal with the universal.


"Untitled (Self-Portrait/Please send to Agnes Martin/Agnes Gund)", 1993, is reproduced from "Ray Johnson."

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

Hyperallergic

Edward H. Gomez

...a summertime mini-retrospective of the artist’s career...an illustrated volume that documented that presentation and also serves as a stand-alone, compact introduction to the artist’s creative trajectory, aesthetic outlook, and life story. It features an insightful essay by the poet and author Brad Gooch, who is well known for his 1993 biography of the American poet and curator Frank O’Hara.

Ray Johnson

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FROM THE ARTBOOK BLOG

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 12/6/2017

Nonchalant flirting with oblivion: Ray Johnson

Nonchalant flirting with oblivion: Ray Johnson

“Untitled (Dali/Dear David Smith/Barbra Streisand)” (1974) is reproduced from Matthew Marks' excellent new Ray Johnson monograph. Featuring work from the ’60s through the ’90s, a selection of well-chosen archival photographs and a personal essay by Brad Gooch, this small but rich volume tells the story of “an obsessive patternmaker in his life and work … forever scrambling the two. All the elements were present from the start: the witty eye, the textural jump-cutting, the nonchalant flirting with oblivion.” Get it while it’s hot. continue to blog


RAY JOHNSON MONOGRAPHS + ARTIST'S BOOKS

Ray Johnson and William S. Wilson: Frog Pond Splash

RAY JOHNSON AND WILLIAM S. WILSON: FROG POND SPLASH

Siglio

ISBN: 9781938221279
USD $29.95
| CAN $41.95 UK £ 27

Pub Date: 11/20/2020
Active | In stock


That Was the Answer: Interviews with Ray Johnson

THAT WAS THE ANSWER: INTERVIEWS WITH RAY JOHNSON

Soberscove Press

ISBN: 9781940190204
USD $20.00
| CAN $27.95 UK £ 17.5

Pub Date: 9/4/2018
Active | In stock


Ray Johnson

RAY JOHNSON

Matthew Marks Gallery

ISBN: 9781944929114
USD $50.00
| CAN $67.5 UK £ 45

Pub Date: 7/25/2017
Active | In stock


Ray Johnson: The Paper Snake

RAY JOHNSON: THE PAPER SNAKE

Siglio

ISBN: 9781938221033
USD $34.70
| CAN $45.95 UK £ 30

Pub Date: 7/31/2014
Active | In stock


Not Nothing: Selected Writings by Ray Johnson 1954-1994

NOT NOTHING: SELECTED WRITINGS BY RAY JOHNSON 1954-1994

Siglio

ISBN: 9781938221040
USD $45.00
| CAN $60 UK £ 40

Pub Date: 7/31/2014
Active | In stock