Talk:Ray Johnson

Untitled

As of 8/20/2006, There is someone selling Ray Johnson artwork on eBay, or artwork that looks like Ray Johnson artwork, for about $10.00 a piece. The descriptions are extremely odd.

'Contemporary artist' - he died almost 15 years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.172.9 (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The person who has done the most comprehensive recent edits/additions to this is article is also the vice president of the gallery which represents Johnson's work. Is that a conflict of interest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.14.8.188 (talk) 06:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Not if the content of those edits are verifiable and backed up by reliable sources. The Conflict of Interest policy states that "When advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." I think this article gives a pretty good view of its subject without apparent bias of COI. Sjb0926 (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Copyleft

As far as I can ascertain Ray Johnson came up with the term and concept & artwork "copyleft" independently and had no influence whatsover on either free software or open source; it was parallel evolution, like the octopus's eye. Apparently pop art and hackerdom were autonomous autarkies, removed in time as well as in space; if the mileaux had any overlap, I certainly haven't come across any documentation of it. So as far as I'm concerned Ray Johnson has mad props as the precursor of open source in the arts if not software. kencf0618 (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Real person?

I have a friend that swears "How to Draw a Bunny" is a fake documentary. To support this she says that there are no pre-How to Draw a Bunny references to Johnson anywhere online or in print. I had certainly never heard of him before. Matthew Meta 07:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Real person! (but now deceased!)

I met Ray Johnson in a bar on Second Avenue in New York City about 1984-1985. I was introduced to him by John Daley, the assistant to the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (deceased 1986), after he returned from Europe, having lived principally in Rome and London. John was occupied at the time with editing my first cousin's art history Doctoral dissertation, then edited the Vatican Exhibit two "coffee table" books for American publication. He also wrote the catalog for the Carravaggio exhibit at the Metropolitan, and his last work was the catalog for an exhibit of Etruscan art. I know this note is significantly more about John Daley than Ray Johnson, but the two are inextricably intertwined in my memory. The next news I heard about Ray Johnson was that he gave a "performance artwork" exhibition in Hempstead, Long Island---or was it Mineola, or Hicksville? After that, a friend of mine who is a librarian (managerial staff) brought over a copy of the Village Voice, and nine months later, when I picked it up to read, the top blue headline announced Ray Johnson's death in Sag Harbor, as described briefly in the body of this article. I never saw "How to Draw a Bunny", but I saw a number of Ray's pen and ink drawing of potato mashers, from his "potato masher phase" and some of the "personal ads" he designed and exhibited (as best I recall, some were from Marilyn Monroe or other famous "pop" figures). He seemed to be rather creative and inventive, but I don't recall conversing with him much at the corner bar of Second Avenue and Fifth Street, in the East Village. Noteworthy was that he had a shaved head. So, he was real, as real as the author of these words. 4.162.177.189 (talk) 03:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

he was also mentioned occasionally in popular photography magazine (of all places) in the 70s. that's where i first heard of him

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ray Johnson/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Ray Johnson's parents were not immigrants. He had grandparents who farmed at Calumet, above a coppermine, with his aunt running a commercial sauna, apparently for miners. In a poem written in 1944, he mentions an accident in the mine beneath the farm, and the Finns running from the mine. If an entry can't be trusted in one place, it can't be trusted in any. Ray, who did his own intense research, needs to be researched more carefully. 69.203.1.20 (talk) 23:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 23:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 03:58, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Equitable Futures - Internet Cultures and Open Access

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2024 and 10 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jhope54 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Gorepixie.

— Assignment last updated by WikiEdit7205 (talk) 19:11, 11 April 2024 (UTC)