Clive Phillpot
Clive Phillpot, freelance writer, curator and former art librarian on the artist Ray Johnson:
"I was a librarian from 1960 until 2003, starting out in public libraries, becoming Librarian at Chelsea School of Art in 1970, before being appointed Director of the Library at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1977. It was while I was at MoMA that Ray Johnson, "pre-Pop" artist, friend of Warhol, and creator of enduring altered portraits of Elvis, James Dean and others, sent me an envelope. Inside were "mail art" sheets, requesting that I "Add To And Return" them to him. I did this, seemed to have clicked with Ray, and thereby began a correspondence that lasted until he died in 1995.
"In England, and then in the USA, I was also involved with artists' books as artworks, and built up a collection of these at MoMA. Ray was aware of this and in 1987 asked me to collaborate with him in making a book about one of his performances. This was eventually published in 1988. Subsequently I tried to nudge him into making more books with limited success. Then, in 1989 I volunteered to write an essay about him for a retrospective exhibition in Philadelphia. (He really liked the result and read the whole essay over the phone to his "muse".) From the beginning of this project onwards we communicated once or twice a week on the phone, and the correspondence and mail art kept flowing until I left the country, just before Ray died.
"My accumulation of correspondence from Ray, as well as my notes of our regular phone conversations, have subsequently provided me with a resource which both requires more research, and which complements other research into his life and his often dense collages and reliefs. This activity has taken me to many archives and libraries. What drives me on is my personal acquaintance with Ray, the possibility of unravelling some of the many riddles in his life and his art, the quality of his work, and the pleasure and smiles that accompany this endeavour.
"I had a small part in a prize-winning movie about Ray, directed and edited by John Walter, entitled How To Draw a Bunny (US, 2002), this is a great introduction to the man and the myth."
Listen to Clive Phillpot talk about Ray Johnson and his work, including the piece History of Video Art on the LUX website.
Clive Phillpot's writings on Johnson include:
- "Ray Johnson and Nothing" in Voids: A Retrospective [ed. John Armleder et al] (JRP/Ringier, 2009)
- "To and From Ray" text accompanying the exhibition Ray Johnson. Please Add To & Return (Raven Row, 2009)
- Ray Johnson On Flop Art: Fragments From Conversations With Ray Johnson 1988-1994 (Fermley Press, 2008)
- "Ray Johnson’s Book About Death", Blastitude, no.13, 2002
- "Ray Who?", Art Monthly, no.239, 2000
- "Correspondence and the Collapse of Communism" New Observations, no.126, 2000
- "Two Printed Books by Ray Johnson", Lightworks, no.22, 2000
- "The Mailed Art of Ray Johnson" (revised) in Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology [ed. Chuck Welch] (University of Calgary Press, 1995)
- "The Mailed Art of Ray Johnson" in More Works by Ray Johnson 1951-1991 (Moore College of Art & Design, 1991)
- Ray Johnson: Jean Dubuffet Fan Club [co-author] (Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, 1988)
