Sunday, March 1, 2009

Ray Johnson. Please Add to & Return

Ray Johnson. Please Add to & Return
28 February – 10 May 2009

Thank you Alex Sainsbury for bringing Ray Johnson to London.

Raven Row’s inaugural exhibition is the first large UK show of the collages and mailings of New York artist Ray Johnson (1927–1995). Johnson used radical means to construct and distribute images, inadvertently inventing the ‘mail art movement’. He made art out of social life – both real and imagined – gathering celebrities, the art world, and friends into his work. His influence on twentieth century art far exceeds the recognition he receives.

‘Ray Johnson. Please Add to & Return’ will represent Johnson’s mailings, objects he regarded as gifts and thus contrary to the market, equally with the collage works he made for gallery exhibition in the sixties and seventies. Also included will be the collages he subjected to a seemingly endless process of reworking and overlaying, which were found signed with multiple dates and neatly arranged in his house at the time of his death.

Raven Row 56 Artillery Lane London E1 7LS T +44 (0)20 7377 4300 E: info@ravenrow.org

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is a great show and well worth making the effort to see, although I didn't have to make much effort to get there myself since I live in London, but worth travelling to see for sure! And this also gave me the advantage of being able to blog the opening, although a full review will have to wait, far to crowded to do the show properly at the opening!