Play Boy

Just saw a documentary on Ray Johnson. "How to draw a bunny". The continual jazz cymbal beats throughout the film are annoying, but some of the stories and quirks of Johnson make up for it. He did a series of portraits of dealerRichard Feigen and then asked if the dealer wanted to buy them. Feigen said he was interested but asked Johnson for a price. Johnson sends him a letter/drawing asking 42 grand for the set of collages. The dealer writes back saying that's out of his range. Johnson writes another letter/collage asking for half of the original amount. Feigen is interested and writes back. Johnson writes another letter saying that he's changed one of the pieces and comes up with a different offer. These letters/collages go back and forth till it slowly becomes apparent that Johnson isn't that interested in selling the pieces, but is more interested in prolonging the art piece of negotiating through the mail collages. Another story- Peter Schyuff started buying Ray's collages for a grand each. Then one of the collages Peter wanted to buy, Ray priced at 2,ooo. Peter said he'd pay 1,5oo for it. When Ray sent the collage, it had a quarter of it cut out. Yet another story- Johnson wrote to Christo, expressing a wish to purchase one of his pieces. This was during Christo's wrapping years. Christo made a small wrapped piece with a photo of the piece tucked inside of it. He then put postage on it and sent it to Johnson as a gift. On the photo inside was written (paraphrasing here) "I have just made you a piece of art, if you are reading this, you have just ruined it."



The film ponders the strangeness of Johnson's death as the ultimate art piece.