Ray Johnson: How Sad I Am Today....

This catalogue accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver, Canada from October 8-December 19, 1999. Michael Morris and Sharla Sava curated the exhibition.

The exhibition explored Johnson's impact on Canadian avant-garde artists: "Inspired by Johnson's mail art communications, Canadian artists including Anna Banana, General Idea, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris, Vincent Trasov and Peter Schuyff could overstep the constraints of their geographic and cultural isolation and configure their own practice within the embattled terrain of the North American art world. The emergence of the Canadian avant-garde during the 1960's was shaped, in a critical and unmistakable way, by the universe which Johnson's mail art created." (text excerpted from www.belkin.ubc.ca)

The catalogue includes the following essays:

"Ray Johnson: An Appreciation" by Michael Morris

"Determining the Cultural Ecology: Ray Johnson and the New York Corres Sponge Dance School of Vancouver" by Sharla Sava

"Final Exam at the NYCS" by Peter Schuyff

"Inhabiting the Borderline: The Abject in the Work and Correspondence of Ray Johnson and May Wilson" by Muffet Jones

"A Short History of the New York Correspondence School and the early Canadian Mail Art Network" by Robyn Laba, Vincent Trasov, and James Tyer

The catalogue also includes an exhibition history by Muffet Jones.