A detail from an undated work by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint).
A detail from an undated work by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint).

Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition on the American artist Ray Johnson (1927–1995), curated by Jarrett Earnest, at the gallery’s West 19th Street location in New York. Organized in collaboration with The Ray Johnson Estate, the exhibition will feature many never-before-exhibited works from the 1960s through the 1990s, focusing on Johnson as a seminal and influential queer artist as well as on his recurring fandoms and obsessions—from Arthur Rimbaud, Yoko Ono, and Shelley Duvall to false eyelashes—situated within an array of archival materials from his friends and collaborators, including Jimmy DeSana, General Idea, and Peter Hujar.


Viewed together, these works upend our notion of Johnson as a solitary figure working in isolation, situating him at the nexus of a network of avant-garde artists of his time, while deepening our understanding of the strategies of dispersion and displacement at the center of his artistic persona.

 

Read more

 

Image: Ray Johnson, Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint), n.d. (detail)

The 19th Street gallery is open to the public with a limited number of visitors allowed into the exhibition spaces at a time, in accordance with city guidelines.

 

Tuesday to Friday, advance appointments are recommended but not required.

On Saturdays, the gallery is open by appointment only.

To schedule your visit, please click here.

To learn more about the enhanced safety measures currently in place, please click here.

Location
525 West 19th Street New York
Dates
April 8—May 22, 2021
Curators
Jarrett Earnest
Artist
Ray Johnson
Press Release
WHAT A DUMP

Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP is the first exhibition to foreground him as a queer artist, bringing together previously unseen collages, drawings, and ephemera from The Ray Johnson Estate. By paying attention to the particular subject matter of his ongoing obsessions—from poets Arthur Rimbaud and Gertrude Stein to movie stars Shelley Duvall and River Phoenix—a fuller picture of his complex visual logic emerges than ever before, one steeped in drag, teenage fan clubs, and S-M. Johnson’s work will be amplified by art and archival material from several artists he was in dialogue with—including General Idea, Peter Hujar, Jimmy DeSana, Sari Dienes, Geoffrey Hendricks, and David Wojnarowicz—to trace the contours and strategies of a broader milieu. 

 

Unless otherwise stated, all text is excerpted from an essay by Jarrett Earnest accompanying the exhibition. To request a free physical copy of the text in the WHAT A DUMP zine, please write to: 

Shelley Duvall Fan Club
c/o The Ray Johnson Estate
34 East 69th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10021

WHAT A DUMP

Download the Essay by Jarrett Earnest
An installation view of an exhibition titled Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP at David Zwirner, New York, in 2021.

Installation view: Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

Installation view: Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

The opening of Edward Albee’s 1962 play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has Martha stumbling into her home to deliver the camp line “What a dump,” a reference to Bette Davis in a film she can’t recall. The line pilfered from a play written by a closeted playwright, “What a dump” became an acidic slogan for queers, an indictment of the gender roles of a straight world in postwar America.

A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Long - What a Dump), circa 1990.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Long - What a Dump), c. 1990
Collage on corrugated cardboard
32 x 8 1/2 inches (81.3 x 21.6 cm)
Framed: 36 1/8 x 12 5/8 inches (91.8 x 32.1 cm)
Inquire

By the 1950s, Johnson was already making collages saturated with popular imagery, blurring high and low, with a special fixation on movie stars, long before the attitudes that became pop art cohered into anything recognizable as a movement. In the mid-fifties, he was appropriating pictures of Elvis Presley and James Dean from advertisements to make cryptic collages pasted with logos from Lucky Strike brand cigarettes. 

A collage on board by Ray Johnson, titled James Dean, dated 1957.

Ray Johnson

James Dean (Lucky Strike), 1957
Collage on board
11 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches (28.3 x 20.6 cm)
Framed: 18 x 15 1/2 inches (45.7 x 39.4 cm)

“[Johnson] was turning out elaborately illustrated letters to friends even in high school. From 1945 to 1948, he studied abstract painting with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College in Asheville, N.C. There he met John Cage, who nudged his interest in Zen Buddhism.… By 1949, Johnson was in New York City. Slight, bright, and wired, he networked through the art world; Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol became his friends.”

—Holland Cotter, “Life Revealed in Letters and Doodles,” The New York Times, 2014

A spread from FILE magazine, dated December 1973.

A spread from FILE magazine, December 1973

A spread from FILE magazine, December 1973

Eschewing the commercial art world, Johnson found his own way to circulate his work. In 1962, artist Ed Plunkett had named the phenomenon of Johnson’s eccentric mailings the “New York Correspondence School,” which Johnson shifted to spell as “Correspondance,” crystallized by the iconic direction stamped on each parcel: “PLEASE ADD TO AND RETURN TO RAY JOHNSON.”

From artist Brian Buczak, one of a selection of four (4) letters mailed from Ray Johnson; Letter #1; Letter #6; Letter #8; Letter #10. Excerpted from the "especially amusing letters” series, dated 1976-1977.

Brian Buczak, one of a selection of four (4) letters mailed from Ray Johnson; Letter #1; Letter #6; Letter #8; Letter #10.  Excerpted from the "especially amusing letters” series , 1976–1977. Courtesy Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Brian Buczak, one of a selection of four (4) letters mailed from Ray Johnson; Letter #1; Letter #6; Letter #8; Letter #10.  Excerpted from the "especially amusing letters” series , 1976–1977. Courtesy Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

“That was a dilemma as to what does one do with one’s sculptures or one’s paintings or one’s drawings. So I solved that problem by chopping them up all into little pieces and mailing them to people.”

—Ray Johnson

A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Lucky Strike Lucky Strike May), dated 1979-1987; 1991-1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Lucky Strike Lucky Strike May), 1979-1987; 1991-1994
Collage on illustration board
13 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches (33.7 x 33.7 cm)
Framed: 17 1/8 x 17 1/8 inches (43.5 x 43.5 cm)
Inquire
An undated vintage black and white gelatin print by Jimmy DeSana, titled William Burroughs.

Jimmy DeSana, William Burroughs, n.d. Courtesy of the Jimmy DeSana Trust and Salon 94, New York

Jimmy DeSana, William Burroughs, n.d. Courtesy of the Jimmy DeSana Trust and Salon 94, New York

A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Dear William Burroughs 1 - 50), dated 1956, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Dear William Burroughs 1 - 50), 1956, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1994
Collage on illustration board
14 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches (36.5 x 29.2 cm)
Framed: 18 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches (47 x 39.4 cm)
Inquire

A major theme in the exhibition is a particularly queer lineage of collage, the “cut-up,” influenced by William Burroughs. Burroughs was the black sun of the counterculture, and his ideas around language and social control radiated intersections of violence, queerness, sex, and death. His mission was to combat the hypocritical forms of domination that saturated every word and image of postwar America’s consumer culture. Beyond his string of influential novels, his single most important contribution was his articulation of the “cut-up” as a tool, an aesthetic and philosophical framework for collage that sought to disrupt the internalized circuit that linked each individual with the wider world.

A collage on cardboard panel by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (BRUNCH) , dated 1979, 1981-1986, 1992.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (BRUNCH), 1979, 1981-1986, 1992
Collage on cardboard panel
7 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (19.1 x 31.8 cm)
Framed: 11 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches (29.2 x 41.9 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (To Gino From Shelley Duvall), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (To Gino From Shelley Duvall), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
11 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches (28.9 x 21.3 cm)
Framed: 15 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (39.4 x 31.8 cm)
Inquire

Movie star fan clubs and fan mail were an existing popular-culture phenomenon, markedly identified with young women, that Johnson could seamlessly incorporate into the New York Correspondance School ethos, with its preoccupation with invented personas and cult figures. There is no question that the gender-bending persona of Marcel Duchamp, who famously created the feminine alter ego Rrose Sélavy, presages Johnson’s own deconstructions of the artist as elusive celebrity. Importantly, he adds to that construct the artist as fan, with an iconography encompassing a comprehensive pantheon of twentieth-century gay icons, from the immortal classics Mae West, Greta Garbo, Jayne Mansfield, and Judy Garland to the fresher faces of Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Cher, and Sharon Stone.

A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Catherine Deneuve with Bridget Riley’s Comb), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Catherine Deneuve with Bridget Riley’s Comb), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
13 x 9 inches (33 x 22.9 cm)
Framed: 17 x 13 inches (43.2 x 33 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Lauren Bacall La Monte Young), dated 1974-1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Lauren Bacall La Monte Young), 1974-1994
Collage on illustration board
15 x 15 inches (38.1 x 38.1 cm)
Framed: 15 3/8 x 15 1/2 inches (39.1 x 39.4 cm)
Inquire

“The NYCS [New York Correspondance School] was also redubbed ‘clubs’ or ‘fanclubs’ (as in the ‘Shelley Duvall Fan Club’), pointing up Johnson’s enthusiasm for both the obscure and the mundane. Rather than an artist struggling with weighty ideas, he became a fan among fans.”

—Nayland Blake, “Ray Johnson,” Artforum, 1999

A collage on cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Betty Grable with Alphabet), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Betty Grable with Alphabet), 1994
Collage on cardboard
13 7/8 x 8 1/2 inches (35.2 x 21.6 cm)
Inquire
A collage on leather book cover by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Elvis book), dated 1991.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Elvis book), 1991
Collage on leather book cover
11 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches (28.6 x 21.6 cm)
Framed: 15 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches (38.7 x 31.8 cm)
Inquire

“He began making works that he called ‘moticos’—possibly an anagram of the word ‘osmotic’—filled to overflowing with the pop-culture imagery from magazines, advertising, and television that was starting to saturate society. Elvis Presley and James Dean surfaced repeatedly, like twin deities.”

—Randy Kennedy, “Always on His Own Terms,” The New York Times, 2015

An undated collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint).

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint), n.d.
Collage on illustration board
11 x 8 1/2 inches (27.9 x 21.6 cm)
Framed: 15 x 12 1/2 inches (38.1 x 31.8 cm)
Inquire
An installation view of an exhibition titled Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP at David Zwirner, New York, in 2021.

Installation view: Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

Installation view: Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

Mark Bloch, one of Johnson’s friends and correspondents, saved audio recordings of the artist’s phone messages, some of which can be heard here.

On April 20, 1976, Johnson had a friend hold a gooseneck table lamp a few feet from the left side of Andy Warhol’s face while Johnson traced the slightly larger-than-life shadow onto a sheet of paper on the wall. The process of assembling what Johnson would call his “Silhouette University” had just begun. Johnson continued tracing them sporadically into the early nineties, amassing about three hundred in total. He made them of his closest friends: Ruth Asawa, his classmate at Black Mountain, and the characters of his expanded art world, including Michael Morris, Robin Lee Crutchfield, and Marcia Tucker, who curated Johnson’s New York Correspondence School Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1970.

A pencil drawing on paper by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Andy Warhol), dated 1976.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Andy Warhol), 1976
Pencil on paper
17 3/4 x 12 inches (45.1 x 30.5 cm)
A pencil drawing on paper by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Ruth Asawa), dated 1980.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Ruth Asawa), 1980
Pencil on paper
17 x 14 inches (43.2 x 35.6 cm)

Johnson used these silhouettes as the armature for the collages he would make the rest of his life. He would retrace the profile to make a pattern and then layer on imagery, building precise motifs that mutated around the forms of the face, often burying it beyond recognition.

A collage on board by Ray Johnson, titled Andy Warhol with Snake (series of 5) , dated 1977, 1983.

Ray Johnson

Andy Warhol with Snake (series of 5), 1977, 1983
Collage on board
12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
Inquire
A collage on board by Ray Johnson, titled Benglis 12, dated 1980-1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989.

Ray Johnson

Benglis 12, 1980-1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989
Collage on board
12 1/8 x 12 1/5 inches (30.8 x 31.0 cm)
Framed: 16 x 16 1/2 inches (40.6 x 41.9 cm)
Inquire

Johnson kept almost all of these collages for himself, returning to them year after year for decades, adding amendments, adjustments, and accretions that sometimes became reliefs. There is a sense they are forever in process, temporarily arrested rather than resolved. He also fastidiously added dates to the surface every time he went back—sometimes dozens of times—which actually obscure rather than clarify how they came into being, given that there is no sense of what was added when. The effect is a rejection of linear time, as he once wrote in a collage: “NO CHRONOLOGY.” 

A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (No Chronology), dated 1984.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (No Chronology), 1984
Collage on illustration board
10 x 9 inches (25.4 x 22.9 cm)
Framed: 14 x 13 inches (35.6 x 33 cm)
Inquire
A collage on cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled, dated 1974, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled, 1974, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1994
Collage on cardboard
12 1/4 x 10 inches (31.1 x 25.4 cm)
Framed: 16 1/4 x 14 inches (41.3 x 35.6 cm)
Inquire

“Every minute detail of life is an adventure for him. And he loves the smallest things, bits of paper, envelopes, and small prints. He also adores puns, double meanings, and he transforms his ideas, witty thoughts, humorous escapades of mind into collage art. Ray Johnson registers with jet speed the microscopic occurrences of our realities.”

—Lil Picard, “Death Rattleart,” The East Village Other, 1967

An undated collage by Charles Henri Ford, named Untitled (Portrait of Ray Johnson).

Charles Henri Ford, Untitled (Portrait of Ray Johnson), n.d. Courtesy Charles Henri Ford Estate

Charles Henri Ford, Untitled (Portrait of Ray Johnson), n.d. Courtesy Charles Henri Ford Estate

In 1975, Peter Hujar photographed Johnson for his book Portraits in Life and Death (1976). In assembling this book, Hujar considered not only the strength of the individual images, but also what the artists and writers inside signified, and furthermore, what it meant conceptually to gather them together in a group. The twenty-nine individual portraits Hujar ultimately included situates Johnson alongside many of those whose names and images Johnson had long included in his own work, and many he would make silhouettes of, including William Burroughs, John Ashbery, Ann Wilson, and May Wilson. All of Hujar’s subjects radiated allure and outsiderness, the integrity of their work and vision separating them from the mainstream.

A gelatin silver print by Peter Hujar, titled Ray Johnson, dated 1975.

Peter Hujar

Ray Johnson, 1975
Gelatin silver print
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Framed: 23 1/8 x 22 7/8 inches (58.7 x 58.1 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Long - What a Dump), circa 1990.

Ray Johnson

Diane Arbus, 1971
Collage on cardboard
21 x 17 5/8 inches (53.3 x 44.8 cm)
Framed: 22 x 18 1/2 inches (55.9 x 47 cm)
Inquire

For the book, the boldest conceptual move that Hujar made, which was also the most criticized upon its release, was joining the pictures he had taken in 1974 to 1975 of his contemporaries with those of corpses in Palermo catacombs he photographed in 1963. The book declares that the downtown celebrities, those famous selves, almost all of whom are also now dead, are just a temporal and cultural shift away from the anonymity of the cherished cadavers. Death was a persistent theme in Johnson’s work. Frequent appearances of skulls, memorial drawings that list birth and death dates of various figures—including Yukio Mishima, Diane Arbus, Judy Garland, and Frank O’Hara—and news clippings about death are just a few ways Johnson addressed mortality.

An installation view of an exhibition titled Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP at David Zwirner, New York, in 2021.

Installation view: Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

Installation view: Ray Johnson: WHAT A DUMP, David Zwirner, New York, 2021

The thematics of loss, death, and destruction were embedded within his collage techniques themselves. To make a portrait of someone’s face is one thing, but to cut that face up, to mutilate it, to occlude it, to splatter it with paint, obscuring the eyes and mouth, is another thing entirely. Defacement is Johnson’s chief mode and it is within that active process that the deepest sense of his continual negation of identity and the individual self resides. As Burroughs and Brion Gysin described, and as Johnson illustrates, identity is always a kind of collaboration between the past and future, suspended along a looping chain of allusion and reference. For an artist so driven to map the shifting boundaries of groups, akin to Hujar, within Johnson’s collages every portrait is also, inescapably, an irresolvable group picture.

A photo by Jimmy DeSana of Geoffrey Hendricks kissing Ray Johnson’s head, dated c. 1972.

Jimmy DeSana, Geoffrey Hendricks kissing Ray Johnson’s head, c. 1972. Courtesy Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Jimmy DeSana, Geoffrey Hendricks kissing Ray Johnson’s head, c. 1972. Courtesy Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

A work by Geoffrey Hendricks, titled 13 Stones for Ray with mechanical bunny, dated 2001.

Geoffrey Hendricks, 13 Stones for Ray with mechanical bunny, 2001. Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Geoffrey Hendricks, 13 Stones for Ray with mechanical bunny, 2001. Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

A sculpture by Geoffrey Hendricks, titled Nothing Stone, dated 1996.

Geoffrey Hendricks, Nothing Stone, 1996. Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Geoffrey Hendricks, Nothing Stone, 1996. Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

A painting by Alice Neel, titled Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian, dated 1978.

Alice Neel, Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian, 1978

Alice Neel, Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian, 1978

In 1996, on the first anniversary of Johnson’s suicide, longtime friend Geoffrey Hendricks drove out to Sag Harbor with his partner, Sur Rodney (Sur), to gather rounded stones from beneath the North Haven Bridge where Johnson jumped to his death, in 1995. As he had for so many friends and lovers, Hendricks wanted to make a kind of memorial for Johnson using those rocks in some way. The car sagged under their weight on the drive back into Manhattan. Eventually, Hendricks used them to make two sculptures. One consisted of thirteen rocks, each engraved with a selection of letters that could be assembled to spell “NO/T/H/IN/G/RAY/J/SAG/ HA/R/B/OR”—a physical cut-up and anagram that could be arranged and rearranged endlessly. He set alongside them a mechanical bunny the couple found in Venice that can be wound up and made to hop around. For the other memorial, Hendricks took one stone, the size of a head, on which he had engraved the single word “nothing.”

A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Self-portrait with Lips), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Self-portrait with Lips), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
5 7/8 x 4 inches (14.9 x 10.2 cm)
Inquire

“I have simply had to accept that out of a life necessity I have written a lot of letters, and given away a lot of material and information, and it has been my compulsion. And as I have done this, it has become historical. It’s my resume, it’s my biography, it’s my history, it’s my life.”

—Ray Johnson, quoted in Tim Keane, “I Is an Other: The Mail Art of Ray Johnson,” Hyperallergic, 2015

Inquire about works by Ray Johnson

Get In Touch

For their participation and support in this exhibition, David Zwirner would like to thank Frances Beatty, Alexander Adler, Maria Ilario and The Ray Johnson Estate; Stephen Koch, Jeffrey Fraenkel, Ola Dlugosz, and the Peter Hujar Archive; Alissa Friedman, Danielle Bartholomew, Salon 94, and the Estate of Jimmy DeSana; Indra Tamang, Allen Frame, and the Estate of Charles Henri Ford; Anneliis Beadnell, P.P.O.W., and the Estate of David Wojnarowicz; the Estate of Geoffrey Hendricks; Elizabeth Dee, Anastasia Clarke, and the John Giorno Foundation; Barbara Pollitt, Pavel Zoubok, and the Sari Dienes Foundation; Yoko Ono and Connor Monahan; Mark Bloch; and Adam Welch and the National Gallery of Canada.

A collage on Masonite by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Her Royal Highness Princess Christina of Sweden), dated 1975.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Her Royal Highness Princess Christina of Sweden), 1975
Collage on Masonite
31 1/2 x 16 1/8 inches (80 x 41 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Merry Xmas), dated 1975, 1989, 1991, 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Merry Xmas), 1975, 1989, 1991, 1994
Collage on illustration board
15 x 15 inches (38.1 x 38.1 cm)
Framed: 19 x 19 inches (48.3 x 48.3 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Lucky Strike Lucky Strike May), dated 1979-1987; 1991-1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Lucky Strike Lucky Strike May), 1979-1987; 1991-1994
Collage on illustration board
13 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches (33.7 x 33.7 cm)
Framed: 17 1/8 x 17 1/8 inches (43.5 x 43.5 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Dear Shirley Temple, Geldzahler) , dated 1956-1992.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Dear Shirley Temple, Geldzahler), 1956-1992
Collage on illustration board
13 1/4 x 15 inches (33.7 x 38.1 cm)
Framed: 17 x 19 inches (43.2 x 48.3 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Cupid with Jackie Curtis Saluting) , dated 1974.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Cupid with Jackie Curtis Saluting), 1974
Collage on illustration board
20 x 15 inches (50.8 x 38.1 cm)
Framed: 22 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches (57.2 x 44.5 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Long - Please Send to Robert Desnos), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Long - Please Send to Robert Desnos), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
32 x 8 1/2 inches (81.3 x 21.6 cm)
Framed: 36 1/8 x 12 5/8 inches (91.8 x 32.1 cm)
Inquire
A collage on cardboard panel by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Blue Boots with AIDS Stamp), dated 1966, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Blue Boots with AIDS Stamp), 1966, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994
Collage on cardboard panel
14 x 11 3/8 inches (35.6 x 28.9 cm)
Framed: 19 5/8 x 17 inches (49.8 x 43.2 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Catherine Deneuve with Bridget Riley’s Comb), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Catherine Deneuve with Bridget Riley’s Comb), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
13 x 9 inches (33 x 22.9 cm)
Framed: 17 x 13 inches (43.2 x 33 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (No Chronology), dated 1984.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (No Chronology), 1984
Collage on illustration board
10 x 9 inches (25.4 x 22.9 cm)
Framed: 14 x 13 inches (35.6 x 33 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (To Gino From Shelley Duvall), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (To Gino From Shelley Duvall), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
11 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches (28.9 x 21.3 cm)
Framed: 15 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (39.4 x 31.8 cm)
Inquire
A collage on cardboard panel by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (BRUNCH) , dated 1979, 1981-1986, 1992.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (BRUNCH), 1979, 1981-1986, 1992
Collage on cardboard panel
7 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (19.1 x 31.8 cm)
Framed: 11 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches (29.2 x 41.9 cm)
Inquire
A collage on cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled, dated 1974, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled, 1974, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1994
Collage on cardboard
12 1/4 x 10 inches (31.1 x 25.4 cm)
Framed: 16 1/4 x 14 inches (41.3 x 35.6 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Skull with Lucky Strike Bunny) , circa 1992.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Skull with Lucky Strike Bunny), c.1992
Collage on illustration board
10 x 4 1/2 inches (25.4 x 11.4 cm)
Framed: 12 5/8 x 7 1/4 inches (32.1 x 18.4 cm)
Inquire
An undated collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint).

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Liza Minnelli with Pink Paint), n.d.
Collage on illustration board
11 x 8 1/2 inches (27.9 x 21.6 cm)
Framed: 15 x 12 1/2 inches (38.1 x 31.8 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Self-portrait with Lips), dated 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Self-portrait with Lips), 1994
Collage on corrugated cardboard
5 7/8 x 4 inches (14.9 x 10.2 cm)
Inquire
A gelatin silver print by Peter Hujar, titled Ray Johnson, dated 1975.

Peter Hujar

Ray Johnson, 1975
Gelatin silver print
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Framed: 23 1/8 x 22 7/8 inches (58.7 x 58.1 cm)
Inquire
A pigment print by Peter Hujar, titled John Waters (I), dated 1975.

Peter Hujar

John Waters (I), 1975
Pigment print
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
23 1/8 x 22 7/8 inches (58.7 x 58.1 cm)
Inquire
A black and white photograph by David Wojnarowicz, titled Arthur Rimbaud in New York, dated 1978 to 1979.

David Wojnarowicz

Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-1979
Black and white photograph
5 x 3 1/2 inches (12.7 x 8.9 cm)
Framed: 11 1/4 x 9 3/4 inches (28.6 x 24.8 cm)
Inquire
A collage on leather book cover by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Bea Arthur’s House), dated 1991.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Bea Arthur’s House), 1991
Collage on leather book cover
11 1/8 x 8 5/8 inches (28.3 x 21.9 cm)
Framed: 15 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches (38.7 x 31.8 cm)
Inquire
A collage on illustration board by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Sonny Cher), dated 1974, 1986.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Sonny Cher), 1974, 1986
Collage on illustration board
15 x 20 inches (38.1 x 50.8 cm)
Framed: 19 1/8 x 24 inches (48.6 x 61 cm)
Inquire
A collage on board by Ray Johnson, titled Andy Warhol with Snake (series of 5) , dated 1977, 1983.

Ray Johnson

Andy Warhol with Snake (series of 5), 1977, 1983
Collage on board
12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
Inquire
An undated collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Bridget Riley with Comb).

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Bridget Riley with Comb), n.d.
Collage on corrugated cardboard
7 7/8 x 5 5/8 inches (20 x 14.3 cm)
Inquire
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Long - What a Dump), circa 1990.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Long - What a Dump), c. 1990
Collage on corrugated cardboard
32 x 8 1/2 inches (81.3 x 21.6 cm)
Framed: 36 1/8 x 12 5/8 inches (91.8 x 32.1 cm)
Inquire
A collage on board by Ray Johnson, titled James Dean, dated 1957.

Ray Johnson

James Dean (Lucky Strike), 1957
Collage on board
11 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches (28.3 x 20.6 cm)
Framed: 18 x 15 1/2 inches (45.7 x 39.4 cm)
An ink rubbing on Webril by Sari Dienes, titled Untitled (Ray Johnson Body Rubbing) , circa 1954.

Sari Dienes

Untitled (Ray Johnson Body Rubbing), c. 1954
Ink rubbing on Webril
74 x 35 inches (188 x 88.9 cm)
An undated chromogenic print by Charles Henri Ford, titled Untitled (Portrait of Ray Johnson).

Charles Henri Ford

Untitled (Portrait of Ray Johnson), n.d.
Chromogenic print
11 x 14 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
A collage on cardboard panel by Ray Johnson, titled Cher Chair, dated 1985.

Ray Johnson

Cher Chair, 1985
Collage on cardboard panel
10 x 7 3/8 inches (25.4 x 18.7 cm)
Framed: 14 3/4 x 12 inches (37.5 x 30.5 cm)
An untitled Xerox on copy paper by Ray Johnson, titled CUTE CLASS CLUB.

Ray Johnson

CUTE CLASS CLUB, n.d.
Xerox on copy paper
11 x 8 1/2 inches (27.9 x 21.6 cm)
A collage on corrugated cardboard by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Long - What a Dump), circa 1990.

Ray Johnson

Diane Arbus, 1971
Collage on cardboard
21 x 17 5/8 inches (53.3 x 44.8 cm)
Framed: 22 x 18 1/2 inches (55.9 x 47 cm)
Inquire
A collage on cardboard panel by Ray Johnson, titled Untitled (Greta Garbo), dated 1974, 1990, 1991, 1994.

Ray Johnson

Untitled (Greta Garbo), 1974, 1990, 1991, 1994
Collage on cardboard panel
14 1/2 x 12 inches (36.8 x 30.5 cm)
Inquire
A crayon and ink drawing on paper by Ray Johnson, titled Dear Alison…, dated 1961.

Ray Johnson

Dear Alison…, 1961
Crayon and ink on paper
11 x 7 1/4 inches (27.9 x 18.4 cm)
Mixed media mail art on paper, titled Untitled (Rimbaud), circa 1971.

Mail Art

Untitled (Rimbaud), n.d.
Mixed Media
11 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches (29.8 x 21.6 cm)
Mixed media mail art on paper, titled Untitled (Rimbaud), circa 1971.

Mail Art

Untitled (Rimbaud), n.d.
Mixed Media
11 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches (29.8 x 21.6 cm)
A collage on cardboard panel by Ray Johnson, titled James Dean / Rimbaud, circa 1956-1958.

Ray Johnson

James Dean / Rimbaud, c. 1956-1958
Collage on cardboard panel
11 x 7 5/8 inches (27.9 x 19.4 cm)
Framed: 15 1/2 x 12 inches (39.4 x 30.5 cm)
An undated color photograph by Frances Beatty, titled Untitled (WHAT A DUMP glove).

Frances Beatty

Untitled (WHAT A DUMP glove), n.d
Color photograph
6 x 4 inches (15.2 x 10.2 cm)

    Read More Read Less

      Read More Read Less

        Read More Read Less

          Read More Read Less

          WHAT A DUMP

          Ray Johnson

            Ray Johnson

            WHAT A DUMP

            Inquire

            To learn more about this artwork, please provide your contact information.

            By sharing your details you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
            This site is also protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

            Inquire

            To learn more about available works, please provide your contact information

            By sharing your details you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.This site is also
            protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

              Collection

              Artwork Added

              Please note: There’s no guarantee that we can hold this work for you until you complete your purchase

              Subtotal  
              Shipping Calculated at next step

              Your Collection is Empty

              Continue Shopping
              Error
              Error
              Something went wrong while loading this page. Please try again shortly.
              Something went wrong while loading this page. Please try again shortly.