Correspondents of Ray Johnson, installation at Krannert Art Museum, 2013. Photo by Kathryn Koca Polite
To complement the exhibition Return to Sender, the Gelvin Noel Gallery showcases works from the museum’s permanent collection by artists who corresponded with the collagist and mail artist Ray Johnson.
In 1962 Johnson founded the New York Correspondence School (NYCS), an international network of visual artists, writers, and celebrities who exchanged mail art and engaged in mail art events. Although he declared the NYCS’s “death” by 1973, Johnson continued to be quite prolific with his “add to and return” correspondence under different group names, such as the Buddha University and the Marcel Duchamp Fan Club. This exhibition highlights Pop artists whose work shared similarities with Johnson's aesthetic, such as Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, William Wiley, and Karl Wirsum.
Curator: Kathryn Koca Polite, assistant curator
Sponsored in part by Fox Development Corporation; Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; and Krannert Art Museum
