This gemlike Ray Johnson book celebrates his friendship with writer
and logophile William S. Wilson in pictures and words
A New York Times critics' pick Best Art Books 2020
Dubbed Ray Johnson's Boswell, writer and logophile William S. Wilson was
one of legendary artist Ray Johnson's closest friends and biggest
champions. He was also perhaps Johnson's most trusted poetic muse and
synthesizer of referents and references. The influence was mutual:
throughout their lifelong friendship, begun when both men were in their
twenties, writer and artist challenged and enriched one another's work.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition of Ray Johnson works from
Wilson's archive at the Art Institute of Chicago, Frog Pond Splash
embodies the energy, expansiveness and motion of their work and their
friendship. Editor Elizabeth Zuba has selected short, perspicacious
texts by Wilson (from both published and unpublished writings) and
collage works by Johnson to create juxtapositions that do not explicate
or illustrate; rather, they form a loose collage-like letter of works
and writings that are less bound than assembled, allowing the reader to
put the pieces together, to respond, to add to and return to the way
Johnson required of his correspondents and fellow travelers.
Taking its title from Wilson's haiku equivalence of Johnson's process,
Frog Pond Splash is a small book but many things: a collage-like
homage to their friendship, a treasure chest of prismatic
correspondances, as well as an unusual portrait of the disappearing,
fractured Johnson through Wilson's words. Zuba's nuanced selection and
arrangement of images and texts in this sumptuous little volume honors
Johnson's open system (which rejected closed and consistent meanings,
codes and symbols) in its open, associative, and intimate playfulness.
