Ray Johnson's Resurgence
Artist Ray Johnson's (1927-1995) body of work spans many media, but he is best known for his intricate and complex collages. His mail art project, The New York Correspondance [sic] School, utilized the postal system as a means of dissemination, circumventing the commercial art world. In his life, Johnson was close to key figures including Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Jim Rosenquist and Jasper Johns, and he is associated with several significant art movements. Johnson continued to produce work until his suicide in 1995, and is the subject of the cult classic documentary film How to Draw a Bunny. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, and is held in major public and private collections.
The Challenge
The Ray Johnson Estate hired PCC in October 2014 for strategic counsel and public relations. Although highly regarded among critics, art historians and artists, Johnson remained relatively unknown in comparison to his peers. The estate enlisted PCC to highlight Johnson's legacy in the media and beyond, with the hopes of renewing public interest in the artist.
The Strategy and Implementation
PCC implemented a media campaign that emphasized the dynamism of The Ray Johnson Estate's upcoming program: the artist was to be included in a solo exhibitions at MoMA, R.L Feigen & Co. and Karma, and was to be the subject of the book Not Nothing, published on the 20th anniversary of his death. Johnson's often enigmatic, idiosyncratic, and multifaceted life left abundant room for storytelling.
PCC drew upon the estate's treasure trove of archives to encourage writers and editors to better understand the late artist. The firm helped to coordinate an exhaustively researched profile on Johnson, which ran on the front and back page of The New York Times' Arts Section in January 2015. Shortly thereafter, Modern Painters published a 12-page spread unearthing various Johnson ephemera found within the archive. Vogue.com's arts editor Mark Guiducci, a longtime fan of the late artist, commissioned new works inspired by the Johnson aesthetic from the artist's influential network of artist friends and admirers including Lynda Benglis, James Rosenquist and Ed Ruscha. It was this article that inspired the next phase: a collaboration between the estate and the leading performance art non-profit Performa.
PCC proposed an event that would give artists an opportunity to celebrate Johnson and engage with his work in a public context. PCC connected the estate with Performa, and they collaboratively launched "Please Add to and Return To," a mail art activation. For this project, the estate and Performa re-circulated several of the artist's mail art "templates" in magazines, newspapers and online, asking participants to simply "Please Add To and Return To" Performa via USPS or through social media with the hashtag #PleaseAddTo. PCC produced special Ray Johnson stamps and mailed dozens of templates to artists around the world asking them to participate.
The Results
The Performa project created a fitting opportunity for loyal and new fans to continue engaging with and find new meaning in the late artist's work. Thousands of physical and digital submissions have poured in from around the world since the project launched. In May 2015 R.L. Feigen & Co. mounted Please Return To: Mail Art from the Ray Johnson Archive, an exhibition inspired by the Performa project, which further immersed new audiences in Johnson's mail art projects.
The front-page article in The New York Times coincided with R.L. Feigen & Co.'s Ray Johnson's Art World exhibition, and the estate saw a significant spike in attendance during the show's final days – in addition to a rave review. Further press coverage included: The New Yorker, New York Magazine, W Magazine, Artinfo, ARTnews, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Hyperallergic, ID, and The New York Observer. Both the influx of press coverage and the Performa project have brought significant attention to Johnson, further inserting him into the dialogue of the contemporary art world.
Images of artwork and portraits of Ray Johnson © The Ray Johnson Estate, Courtesy Richard L. Feigen & Co.; Installation images Courtesy of Richard L. Feigen & Co.
"Working with PCC has revived interest in Ray Johnson in a remarkable way. Bettina and her team have an intellectual depth that I frankly didn't expect from publicists."
