{"id":271,"date":"2012-08-22T11:03:10","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T15:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/?p=271"},"modified":"2014-07-08T16:02:46","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T20:02:46","slug":"a-book-about-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/archives\/271","title":{"rendered":"A Book About Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cRay didn\u2019t talk about it, he just did it. That\u2019s why you don\u2019t find art magazines lying around quoting the art philosophy of Ray Johnson.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014Toby Spiselman<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ray Johnson, the original \u201cmost famous unknown artist in the world,\u201d produced his <em>A Book About Death<\/em> during the years 1963 to 1965. The pages were randomly mailed and offered for sale. Complete copies were compiled by a rare few. Johnson was a significant bridge between the groundbreaking work of Schwitters, the sensibilities of Cornell, and the emergence of what would become the most widely recognizable features of Pop Art. He was highly influential in the Mail Art, Installation Art, and Performance Art movements, as well as late 20th-century neo-Dadaist trends. Paris-based <a href=\"http:\/\/matthewrosestudio.blogspot.com\/\">Matthew Rose<\/a> has actively aroused <a href=\"http:\/\/abookaboutdeatharchive.blogspot.com\/\"> a worldwide interest and vitality<\/a> that perpetuates the legacy of <em>A Book About Death,<\/em> including a 2010 incarnation (in which I made a small contribution). The full history <a href=\"http:\/\/rayjohnsonandabookaboutdeath.blogspot.com\/\">can be studied at this site<\/a>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/rayjohnsonandabookaboutdeath.blogspot.com\/2010\/10\/shirley-335.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Dixon_ABAD.jpg\" alt=\"ABAD 2010 by J A Dixon\" title=\"ABAD 2010 by J A Dixon\" width=\"400\" height=\"277\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-283\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Dixon_ABAD.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Dixon_ABAD-300x208.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 88%; line-height: 133%; margin-top: 292px; margin-bottom: 19px; color: gray; padding-left: 30px;\" align=\"left\"><strong><em>ABAD 2010<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\ncollage miniature by J A Dixon<br \/>\n6 x 4 inches, not for sale<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cRay didn\u2019t talk about it, he just did it. That\u2019s why you don\u2019t find art magazines lying around quoting the art philosophy of Ray Johnson.\u201d \u2014Toby Spiselman Ray Johnson, the original \u201cmost famous unknown artist in the world,\u201d produced his A Book About Death during the years 1963 to 1965. The pages were randomly mailed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,24,8,13,18,6,5,54,20,28,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4135,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/4135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/jadixon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}