The annual Ray Johnson (Un)birthday celebration and meeting will be held Tuesday, October 24 at 7:00 pm. Hosted by Cary Loren and Julie J. Thomson we invite you to join us to celebrate the singular, Detroit-born artist, Ray Johnson!
Special guest speakers this year include Alex Landry and Kira Houston who have written papers on Ray Johnson and are working on his past connections and friendships at Black Mountain College.
This is a virtual meeting open for anyone to attend and held on Zoom. If you are subscribed to our Ray Johnson list you will receive an email on the day of the meeting with the Zoom link. To join, please send your name and email to info@thebookbeat.com
Envelope from Ray Johnson to Lorna Blaine Halper, postmark March 8, 1947, mixed media. Asheville Art Museum, Black Mountain College Collection. © Ray Johnson Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Alex Landry will discuss her Master’s thesis on Johnson’s letters from Black Mountain College, “Seeing, Relatedness, Matière: Ray Johnson’s Queer Formalism and BMC,” which proposes connections between Johnson’s early formal and perceptual interests and his later queer networking strategies. Alex will also discuss her digital exhibition with the Asheville Art Museum, “Dear Lorna, Love Ray,” a project that inspired her thesis research.
Kira Houston will discuss his recent work with Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center to produce Volume 14 of the Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, which focuses on queer life at BMC. Kira’s first published article on Ray Johnson appears in the volume. He will also discuss his undergraduate thesis, “Queer Relationality: Ray Johnson’s Silhouettes as Glyphs, Dumps, Letters and Holes,” which investigates silhouettes and silhouetting as a key conceptual aspect of Ray Johnson’s oeuvre.
Ray Johnson photo by Bill Wilson
Ray Johnson (1927–1995) was a singular artist, for whom life and work were inextricably linked. Born in Detroit, Johnson attended Black Mountain College before moving to New York, where his work anticipated Pop art and he was active in early Fluxus circles. Best known for his collages and mail art activities, including his New York Correspondence School, he operated fluidly in a wide range of modes. For Johnson, everything and everyone were potential material for his art—any form could become a space for artistic activity—and the form of the interview proved no exception.
For those who may’ve not seen it, the superb bioflick: HOW TO DRAW A BUNNY
Ray Johnson, Untitled (Double Andy with Nail Polish Model), 1977. Courtesy of the Ray Johnson Estate.
Kira Houston is an artist, writer, and LGBTQ+ advocate based in Asheville, NC. He graduated from Clark University with a BA in Art History and Spanish, and now works as Outreach Coordinator at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. In addition to art history and BMC scholarship, his research interests include queer theory, science fiction, and new media.
Alex Landry is a graduate student in art history in the Newcomb Art Department of Tulane University, where she is completing her thesis on Ray Johnson and the impact of his time at BMC on his work. She has held curatorial positions at the Newcomb Art Museum and the Asheville Art Museum, where she curated a digital exhibition titled “Dear Lorna, Love Ray” on the letters that Johnson wrote to Lorna Blaine Halper while he was a student at BMC. Alex is currently a gallery assistant at The Parlour Gallery in New Orleans. In her writing and sculptural work, she studies how queerness relates to art-making and reception.
Julie J. Thomson is an educator, independent scholar, and curator who has been researching and writing about artists at Black Mountain College since 2006. She is co-curator and co-author the exhibition and book Weaving at Black Mountain College: Anni Albers, Trude Guermonprez, and Their Students (September 29, 2023-January 6, 2024, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC, the author of Begin to See: The Photographers of Black Mountain College (Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 2017) and the editor of That Was the Answer: Interviews with Ray Johnson (Soberscove Press, 2018). juliejthomson.blogspot.com