Collections, Italy, Salerno, 13 January 2023
The online archive of the American pre-pop artist Ray Johnson is born in Italy.
Presentation in Salerno by Sandro Bongiani of the online archive of Ray Johnson's works present in the Coco Gordon collection of the US state of Colorado, visible from 13 January 2023 in an all-Italian contemporary art startup.
SANDRO BONGIANI CONTEMPORARY ART
RAY JOHNSON / COCO GORDON ARCHIVE, COLORADO - USA
After the "Ray Johnson Estate" Archive in New York, the "Ray Johnson Archive Coco Gordon" was born in Italy, an online archive of the great pre-pop artist Ray Johnson, one of the most influential contemporary American artists, now accessible in the startup Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea with a reasoned collection of unpublished materials for all scholars and for those who want to know him better. In this web platform it is possible to consult a considerable part of works, photos of the artist, performances, and written texts by Ray Johnson from the years 1970-1995, which thanks to the collaboration of Coco Gordon in over 25 years of assiduous attendance has collected and preserved , now finally published online. Today, in the era of the Web and of stratified knowledge, the collection of Coco Gordon's Ray Johnson digital archive preserves and disseminates knowledge by responding to specific consultation needs of the archived visual materials, fulfilling the fundamental function of conservation, selection and accessibility of data that become the primary object of attention and consultation by the art scholar. A necessary and useful tool that performs the dual function of making assets accessible and conserving them correctly without exposing them to unpredictable risks. The Ray Johnson Archive comprises a large collection of materials including, but not limited to, correspondence, mail art, collages, documentary photographs, objects and memorabilia. A special thanks goes to the artist Coco Gordon and to the various collaborators who have contributed to creating the section of the website dedicated to Ray Johnson. Sandro Bongiani
The Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea Gallery born as a non-profit cultural space, wants to question its own role as an independent cultural space by supporting new ways of interacting with the public and activating new forms of participation and involvement with interactive presences and projects that can be shared in real time with the largest number of users anywhere in the world. 60 years after the birth of Mail Art (1962) and exactly 50 years (1972) from the first and only exhibition in Italy of Ray Johnson at the Schwarz Gallery in Milan with a presentation by Henry Martin, we of Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea di Salerno we dedicated almost an entire year of work to Ray Johnson with five interactive exhibitions and an international project held from April to November 2022, simultaneously with the 59th Venice International Biennale 2022.
Furthermore, exactly 27 years after the death of Ray Johnson (January 13, 1995), all of Ray's works present in the Coco Gordon Archive in Colorado USA were cataloged and digitized online, with over 780 documents including unpublished works and photos by the American artist, texts, invitations, letters, works and reflections with related comments by Coco Gordon, memorials and collaborations, chronology of events and critical texts by Sandro Bongiani, archived, each by numerical code to be more easily consulted, in one useful and significant interactive presentation destined to be known and valued by scholars for appropriate studies and insights into the innovative work carried out by this important American pre-pop artist.
The Ray Johnson Archive, to complete the ongoing activity, is officially presented and made permanently visible on January 13, 2023, (the day and month of his disappearance), in the startup web https://www.sandrobongianivrspace.it/, which it stands proudly and in importance at the American Archive "Ray Johnson Estate" in New York. All this seems to us to be a clear example of how one can relate to contemporary art in a creative way and produce new culture. Sandro Bongiani
Presentation of 781 documents in 11 sections and 34 boxes
Dynamic vision of the interactive itinerary Slide Show, duration 54 minutes
at: https://www.sandrobongianivrspace.it/ray-johnson-coco-gordon
Ray Johnson BIOGRAPHY 1927 - 1995
Ray Johnson was a key figure in the Pop Art movement. Primarily a collagist, he was also an early performer and conceptual artist. Called "New York's most famous unknown artist" in his early days, he is considered one of the founding fathers and a pioneer of the use of written language in visual art. On stage in the 1960s, his work and the way he decided to distribute it influenced the future of contemporary art.
Born October 16, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, Johnson attended the experimental Black Mountain College with Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly. Ray Johnson was an American artist known for his innovative practice of Correspondence Art. A collage-based practice, his work combines photography, drawing, performance, and text over geographic distances, via mail delivery. Johnson's projects included conceptually elaborate performances dealing with interpersonal relationships and psychic disorders. "I'm interested in things and things that disintegrate or fall apart, things that grow or have additions, things that arise from things and processes of the way things actually happen to me," said the artist. His early years included sporadic classes at the Detroit Art Institute and a summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. In 1945, Johnson left Detroit to attend progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina. During his three years in the program, he studied with a number of artists, including Josef Albers, Jacob Lawrence, John Cage and Willem de Kooning. in 1948, he spent some time creating abstract art and then landing on Dada with his collages incorporating bits of comics, advertisements and celebrity figures. Johnson often refused to participate in gallery shows and preferred to create a network of mailing correspondents and a new way of making art. This method of disseminating the art became known as the New York Correspondence School and expanded to include impromptu events and dinner parties. Relocating to New York in 1949, Johnson befriended Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, developing an idiosyncratic form of Pop Art. Over the following decades, Johnson became increasingly committed to performance and Zen philosophy, fusing art practice with life. In 1995 Ray Johnson committed suicide, by jumping off a bridge in Sag Harbor, New York, then swimming into the sea and drowning. The circumstances under which he died are still unclear. In 2002, a documentary about the artist's life called How to Draw a Bunny lets us understand his research work. Today, his work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In recent years, all of his experimental work has been re-evaluated by critics as anticipating Pop Art and even American behavioral art.
ONLINE PRESENTATION OF THE RAY JOHNSON ARCHIVE
SALERNO | ITALY
COCO GORDON ARCHIVE Collection Colorado - USA
Permanently open for consultation from 13 January 2023
PLACE: Sandro Bongiani Contemporary Art
ADDRESS: Via S. Calenda, 105/D
TIMETABLES: 00.00-24.00 -
TELEPHONE FOR INFORMATION: +39 3937380225
E-MAIL INFO: bongianimuseum@gmail.com
OFFICIAL SITE: https://www.sandrobongianivrspace.it/
Presentation in Salerno by Sandro Bongiani of the online archive of Ray Johnson's works present in the Coco Gordon collection of the US state of Colorado, visible from 13 January 2023 in an all-Italian contemporary art startup.
SANDRO BONGIANI CONTEMPORARY ART
RAY JOHNSON / COCO GORDON ARCHIVE, COLORADO - USA
After the "Ray Johnson Estate" Archive in New York, the "Ray Johnson Archive Coco Gordon" was born in Italy, an online archive of the great pre-pop artist Ray Johnson, one of the most influential contemporary American artists, now accessible in the startup Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea with a reasoned collection of unpublished materials for all scholars and for those who want to know him better. In this web platform it is possible to consult a considerable part of works, photos of the artist, performances, and written texts by Ray Johnson from the years 1970-1995, which thanks to the collaboration of Coco Gordon in over 25 years of assiduous attendance has collected and preserved , now finally published online. Today, in the era of the Web and of stratified knowledge, the collection of Coco Gordon's Ray Johnson digital archive preserves and disseminates knowledge by responding to specific consultation needs of the archived visual materials, fulfilling the fundamental function of conservation, selection and accessibility of data that become the primary object of attention and consultation by the art scholar. A necessary and useful tool that performs the dual function of making assets accessible and conserving them correctly without exposing them to unpredictable risks. The Ray Johnson Archive comprises a large collection of materials including, but not limited to, correspondence, mail art, collages, documentary photographs, objects and memorabilia. A special thanks goes to the artist Coco Gordon and to the various collaborators who have contributed to creating the section of the website dedicated to Ray Johnson. Sandro Bongiani
The Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea Gallery born as a non-profit cultural space, wants to question its own role as an independent cultural space by supporting new ways of interacting with the public and activating new forms of participation and involvement with interactive presences and projects that can be shared in real time with the largest number of users anywhere in the world. 60 years after the birth of Mail Art (1962) and exactly 50 years (1972) from the first and only exhibition in Italy of Ray Johnson at the Schwarz Gallery in Milan with a presentation by Henry Martin, we of Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea di Salerno we dedicated almost an entire year of work to Ray Johnson with five interactive exhibitions and an international project held from April to November 2022, simultaneously with the 59th Venice International Biennale 2022.
Furthermore, exactly 27 years after the death of Ray Johnson (January 13, 1995), all of Ray's works present in the Coco Gordon Archive in Colorado USA were cataloged and digitized online, with over 780 documents including unpublished works and photos by the American artist, texts, invitations, letters, works and reflections with related comments by Coco Gordon, memorials and collaborations, chronology of events and critical texts by Sandro Bongiani, archived, each by numerical code to be more easily consulted, in one useful and significant interactive presentation destined to be known and valued by scholars for appropriate studies and insights into the innovative work carried out by this important American pre-pop artist.
The Ray Johnson Archive, to complete the ongoing activity, is officially presented and made permanently visible on January 13, 2023, (the day and month of his disappearance), in the startup web https://www.sandrobongianivrspace.it/, which it stands proudly and in importance at the American Archive "Ray Johnson Estate" in New York. All this seems to us to be a clear example of how one can relate to contemporary art in a creative way and produce new culture. Sandro Bongiani
Presentation of 781 documents in 11 sections and 34 boxes
Dynamic vision of the interactive itinerary Slide Show, duration 54 minutes
at: https://www.sandrobongianivrspace.it/ray-johnson-coco-gordon
Ray Johnson BIOGRAPHY 1927 - 1995
Ray Johnson was a key figure in the Pop Art movement. Primarily a collagist, he was also an early performer and conceptual artist. Called "New York's most famous unknown artist" in his early days, he is considered one of the founding fathers and a pioneer of the use of written language in visual art. On stage in the 1960s, his work and the way he decided to distribute it influenced the future of contemporary art.
Born October 16, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, Johnson attended the experimental Black Mountain College with Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly. Ray Johnson was an American artist known for his innovative practice of Correspondence Art. A collage-based practice, his work combines photography, drawing, performance, and text over geographic distances, via mail delivery. Johnson's projects included conceptually elaborate performances dealing with interpersonal relationships and psychic disorders. "I'm interested in things and things that disintegrate or fall apart, things that grow or have additions, things that arise from things and processes of the way things actually happen to me," said the artist. His early years included sporadic classes at the Detroit Art Institute and a summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. In 1945, Johnson left Detroit to attend progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina. During his three years in the program, he studied with a number of artists, including Josef Albers, Jacob Lawrence, John Cage and Willem de Kooning. in 1948, he spent some time creating abstract art and then landing on Dada with his collages incorporating bits of comics, advertisements and celebrity figures. Johnson often refused to participate in gallery shows and preferred to create a network of mailing correspondents and a new way of making art. This method of disseminating the art became known as the New York Correspondence School and expanded to include impromptu events and dinner parties. Relocating to New York in 1949, Johnson befriended Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, developing an idiosyncratic form of Pop Art. Over the following decades, Johnson became increasingly committed to performance and Zen philosophy, fusing art practice with life. In 1995 Ray Johnson committed suicide, by jumping off a bridge in Sag Harbor, New York, then swimming into the sea and drowning. The circumstances under which he died are still unclear. In 2002, a documentary about the artist's life called How to Draw a Bunny lets us understand his research work. Today, his work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In recent years, all of his experimental work has been re-evaluated by critics as anticipating Pop Art and even American behavioral art.
ONLINE PRESENTATION OF THE RAY JOHNSON ARCHIVE
SALERNO | ITALY
COCO GORDON ARCHIVE Collection Colorado - USA
Permanently open for consultation from 13 January 2023
PLACE: Sandro Bongiani Contemporary Art
ADDRESS: Via S. Calenda, 105/D
TIMETABLES: 00.00-24.00 -
TELEPHONE FOR INFORMATION: +39 3937380225
E-MAIL INFO: bongianimuseum@gmail.com
OFFICIAL SITE: https://www.sandrobongianivrspace.it/
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