JOHNSON, Ray with Futzie Nutzle

1971

wood, paper

25 7/8 x 16 3/8 x 1/4 in.

Before the internet made communication instantaneous, the Correspondence Art community served as a way for artists worldwide to connect, inspire, and amuse each other. In an entirely non-commercial and spontaneous outpouring of creativity, postcards and assemblage projects whirred back and forth across the globe. This piece mailed by Ray Johnson is an example of progressive collage creation, where one artist would start a collage and mail it on, inviting the next recipient to add to it and keep it moving, somewhat like the Surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse. Often the intended next recipient was encoded, as in the Please send to Gerry airs note on Johnsons Untitled (Early collage), located in the vitrine. Whole collaborative books were created by these multi-layered creations being gathered up and duplicated into multiples. Without competition, without the strictures imposed today by our postal system, this uniquely peculiar and uncontrollable art form flourished for the pleasure of the participantsCHECK REMAINDER OF FILE FOR FULL TEXT.

1971

JOHNSON, Ray with Futzie Nutzle

United States, 1927 - 1995; United States, b. 1942

Gift of Gary H. Brown

1996.14