Mail Art to Sam Wagstaff
Dublin Core
Title
Mail Art to Sam Wagstaff
Subject
"The Dimple”
Description
Ray Johnson’s mail art piece was sent to Samuel J. Wagstaff as a joke about his dimple. Ray Johnson, best known as a correspondence artist, was the founder of the mail art movement and the New York Correspondence School (NYCS). Johnson enjoyed sending art through the mail to make private jokes public, like the one relating to Wagstaff’s dimple.
In 1963, Sam Wagstaff was working as a curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, Connecticut where curated his landmark modernist show “Black, White and Gray”. Wagstaff was an avid follower of contemporary art in New York, including Ray Johnson. The two met through Gerry Ayres, a successful film producer, in Johnson’s apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Johnson and Wagstaff became friends and Johnson began sending him mail art like this “Dimple” piece.
In this image, Johnson has drawn dotted lines around a black and white photograph of a navel. Below the image, there is a handwritten caption, “Please cut out + send to Sam Wagstaff, Wadsworth Atheneum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut”. Along the left side of the image, Johnson has drawn a long arrow around the navel drawing, pointing towards another caption at the top of the card. This message, written vertically, states, “also send Sam a small black + white drawing of a dimple” with the words “pictorial essay” typed onto the card horizontally next to it.
The piece was sent to Karl Wirsum, an artist in Johnson's mail art network, with directions for him to draw this navel image and then forward it along to Wagstaff. By sending Wagstaff a black and white portrait of a navel, he is joking with Wagstaff about how his dimple and how it can be an addendum into his exhibition of “Black, White and Gray”. Even the piece was not included in the exhibition, Wagstaff and Johnson maintained a correspondence relationship over many years.
In 1963, Sam Wagstaff was working as a curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, Connecticut where curated his landmark modernist show “Black, White and Gray”. Wagstaff was an avid follower of contemporary art in New York, including Ray Johnson. The two met through Gerry Ayres, a successful film producer, in Johnson’s apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Johnson and Wagstaff became friends and Johnson began sending him mail art like this “Dimple” piece.
In this image, Johnson has drawn dotted lines around a black and white photograph of a navel. Below the image, there is a handwritten caption, “Please cut out + send to Sam Wagstaff, Wadsworth Atheneum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut”. Along the left side of the image, Johnson has drawn a long arrow around the navel drawing, pointing towards another caption at the top of the card. This message, written vertically, states, “also send Sam a small black + white drawing of a dimple” with the words “pictorial essay” typed onto the card horizontally next to it.
The piece was sent to Karl Wirsum, an artist in Johnson's mail art network, with directions for him to draw this navel image and then forward it along to Wagstaff. By sending Wagstaff a black and white portrait of a navel, he is joking with Wagstaff about how his dimple and how it can be an addendum into his exhibition of “Black, White and Gray”. Even the piece was not included in the exhibition, Wagstaff and Johnson maintained a correspondence relationship over many years.
Creator
Ray Johnson and Karl Wirsum
Source
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/ray-johnson-mail-art-to-samuel-j-wagstaff-9373
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.298/research-materials/document/EDeK_98.298_028/
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.298/research-materials/document/EDeK_98.298_028/
Publisher
Archives of American Art
Date
1963
Contributor
Alexandra Gibson
Rights
Ray Johnson Estate, New York.
Relation
[no text]
Format
10 x 17 cm,
Language
English
Type
Mail Art
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Files
Collection
Citation
Ray Johnson and Karl Wirsum, “Mail Art to Sam Wagstaff,” Collaborative Correspondence: Mail Art from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, accessed May 10, 2024, https://collaborativecorrespondence.omeka.net/items/show/38.