a little history behind the book about death..

I'm in the Wales incarnation of this project.

Seems like my little "blue" series will now see another side of the world...

MOMA New York and LA County Museum of Art Research Library, have acquired a set for their Art Collection, and The Mube in São Paulo will also hold a set, maybe it's a good move to get the work to Wales.

To date it is exhibited @ MOMA New York, River Mill Art Gallery, Westfield. New Jersey,  Eclipse Gallery, Winsconsin, Otis School of Art & Design, Mobius in Boston. The Queens Museum of Art (NY) The Mube in São Paulo Brazil'' España La Sexta House of Music, Tijuana, Mexico, Baton Rouge Loiusiana .... and now there's a box here on the chair!"

The sprawling, collaborative unbound "book" on the subject of death at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in New York opened on Thursday, September 10, 2009, one day shy of 9/11, bringing together hundreds of artists in a global exhibition that honors the late artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995), whose own work inspired this exhibition; Emily Harvey (1941-2004); and the artists themselves, who have presented their unique visions of the subject through combinations of art, photography, and text.

Conceived and organized by Matthew Rose, a Paris-based American artist, A Book About Death is comprised of artists' postcards from original art created specifically for the exhibit. These pieces collectively form the pages of the "book." While many of the artists involved in the exhibition are internationally known – Yoko Ono, Eric Andersen, Peter Schuyff, Rodney Alan Greenblat – all of the artists share the stage equally. Each artist has contributed 500 postcards to the exhibit, and visitors to the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery were encouraged to take "pages" away with them to create their own book about death. The exhibit is thus designed to "disappear" on its own schedule as people attend the exhibitions.

"Between March 1963 and early 1965, Ray Johnson sent out an unbound 'book' in the mail one page at a time,"explained Mark Bloch, one of the 13 speakers and performers at the opening night."It was a largely unnoticed milestone in the history of books. To make things even more interesting, like much of Johnson's art, it took as its subject ‘death’. Now almost 15 years after the mysterious death of Johnson himself, a huge cross-section of international artists have been asked to revisit Johnson's original strategy by submitting one page each to a new 'Book About Death.'"

"The distribution of art and ideas was very much Ray Johnson's thing,"said photographer Mark Sink, who contributed a photograph of his mother, a three-time cancer survivor, to the exhibition. "It's very exciting to see him and the concept honored in this exhibition."Mark Sink noted that when he first confronted with the project, he drew a blank on death. Then, with some time, the ideas came rushing in. "Life is all about death -- Freud's dissertation of the human drive – sex or death and 'the death of analog...the death of our culture…the slaughter of self-aware sea mammals, and of course, our dying earth. Now I can't stop thinking about it!"

"A Book About Death has become a book about life,"added Joan Harrison, an artist and writer. "I have the strangest sense I can hear Ray (Johnson) chuckling over my shoulder every time I work on anything involved with this project!"