Ray Johnson @ Roth 160A E. 70th through 3/27/10

"Dear Max, Dear Ray, Dear Vince"

One hundred twenty six collages and letters define the smallest possible sub-culture. Each work is excruciatingly personal and trivial, each rings with insecurity and freedom, deprecation and pride, both threatening and disarming, polished and haphazard. In Johnson's "correspondence school" works even genre is in doubt. The appearance of surrealism is comically ridiculed. The make-up of Johnson's imaginary audience jars with hilarity. Insignificant clippings are modified (in every degree) as though some great meaning is immanent. Inside and opaque jokes and references parody epistle-craft and psychosis. The art world is abjectly longed for while bureaucracy is elevated to an art form.