For years, Ray badgered Christo and Jeanne-Claude to barter a piece with him. He sent dozens of works of mail art, a large collage. There was never a response.
One day on his porch he found a brown paper parcel bound with white twine. The US Postal Service mailing label was lettered in neat block print. It was from the Christos.
Excited, he tore the package open. The box was empty save a letter and a polaroid of the paper-wrapped parcel.
Dear Ray,
This package was the piece we are giving you, and now you have destroyed it.
Christo
This is a story told by New York artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995). He was a seminal Pop Art figure in the 1950s, an early conceptualist, and a pioneer of mail art.
It really isn’t the thought that counts, is it?
Dear Josh
That last line made me snort. Glad I didn’t have anything in my mouth. Bad enough I eat over my keyboard and have issues because of it. Spewing hot liquid wouldn’t be good. At any rate, as an artist, this story made me laugh out loud. Clever, I raise my #1 watercolor sable in your honor.
Shalom,
Rochelle
PS Hope you’re keeping warm.
You’d get a kick out of How to Draw a Bunny, a film about Ray Johnson (from which this anecdote is taken). He was a real character.
But thoughtful of them to send something for him to remember his gift by. Good one.
Mail art?
Yeah. Ray Johnson. Check him out. Interesting guy. His suicide was literally a work of art.
Haha. I get Christi’s point, but really, what was Ray meant to do?! Not open the box? :-)
Ha… love it… this could almost be sign in the art-gallery:
“Beware, never open any parcels send from Christo”
This Christo seems to be quite a mean-spirited fellow. And I had no clue something like mail art existed :-)
Mail art? Now that’s something new for me. Intriguing story, Hardy.
Conceptual artists! What a bunch. Nicely constructed story Josh
[By reading this comment you have ruined it]
Ha!
I like this story. Christo found a very sharp way of showing Ray that he (Ray) was not an artist at heart – indeed, that he destroyed art. I have a problem though. How did Christo get the Polaroid into the parcel after photographing the parcel? There are ways of achieving the effect, but all of them are, to a greater or lesser extent, cheats. Or is that a further message of the story?
Hard to say. Christo is an artist who repudiates all attempts to attach deeper meaning to his art, making pieces to incite enjoyment in the user. Ray Johnson was in fact an extraordinary artist whose entire life was a performance, and I think Christo and Jean-Claude knew that about him. Destruction of the piece has been a consistent component of Christo’s work, so it was a compliment to include Ray in the piece. I recommend the film how to draw a bunny about the life of Ray Johnson. Thanks for reading :-)
Knowing him as I do (don’t) I would not have opened the box. But anticipation always get the better of one.
There would be a reply if I was the person!
Mine: https://kindredspirit23.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/disappearing-act/
Scott
Vaguely reminiscent of the Pandora’s box tale. I guess if he’d never opened the box he’d never have known what his gift was.
Oh well. You’ve written the scene well anyway, and that’s what counts here at FFF.
I had to read through the comments to figure this out. I loved the writing, but I’m not an artist and I don’t know much about modern art. Now that I understand, I’m impressed indeed :)
Good tale. Love the irony.