Please Send to Real Life

• $20.00
• 1 mg
• Villagebooks.co

A widely connected pioneer of Pop and mail art, Ray Johnson was described as ‘New York’s most famous unknown artist.’ Best known for his dense, allusive collages, he stopped exhibiting in 1991, but his output did not diminish. Between 1992 and 1994, using 137 disposable cameras, he created a large body of work that is only now coming to light. Staging his artworks in settings near his home in Locust Valley, Long Island, he orchestrated elaborate, punning, sometimes comical photographic events. This book presents the full series of these works, known as 'Real Life,' reproduced together for the first time, with an introduction that situates them in the context of Johnson's previous work and an essay that explores his subversive, improvisational approach to photography. The series, which remained largely unseen until now, is a testament to Johnson's playful and prolific creativity, and its debut in print here, marked the close of a romance with the camera that had spanned four decades of relentless invention.