Kennedy wrote that Johnson worked “by choice and temperament outside the walls of power while possessing the skeleton key to the back gate, allowing him to slip inside at will and wander surreptitiously around.” In other words, he was an “Insider-outsider”, probably the first of this archetype. Since his death in 1995, many artists have followed in this vein.
The first three works as you enter the space are Ray Johnson pieces, the first a painting and following video works. The second work is a video taken of Ray Johnson by William S. Wilson in 1965. Johnson’s jester-like yet flirtatious energy radiates through the short clip.
As you continue, you are drawn to two brightly colored paintings. Marlon Mullen’s untitled work (2015), bright green with the words “IN ART” painted starkly in black capital letters across the center, continues with the playful tone that has already been set up by the Ray Johnson works. Next, you see a canvas covered in red and gold glitter, a lion on its hind legs in the center. Karen Kilimnik’s “My Judith Lieber bag, the royal house of Scotland” (2012) offers a campy continuation of the Johnson artistic vernacular.