Ray Johnson Taoist: Pop Heart School

Slight damage on cover by ear. Ray Johnson's prescient artistic practice emerges with renewed relevance in this comprehensive retrospective. A foundational figure in mail art and early Fluxus and Pop movements, Johnson orchestrated sophisticated collages that seamlessly interwove celebrity imagery, art historical references, linguistic wordplay, and emotional complexity. His recurring cast—Mickey Mouse, Elvis Presley, James Dean, Michael Jackson, Calvin Klein models—anticipated contemporary visual culture's saturation with celebrity and mass-produced imagery. Two decades after his death, Johnson's oeuvre reads as an uncannily accurate chronicle of contemporary fragmentation and sensory overload. This lavishly produced volume presents 296 color reproductions spanning collages, drawings, interventions, and archival materials from Johnson's estate, establishing his singular position within twentieth and twenty-first century visual culture. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Ray Johnson (1927–199