The Ray Johnson and ABAD Show Gets Archived

CW Post College of LIU in Brookville, LI, NY, has archived the ABAD collection along with two boxes containing New York City catalogs, invitations, and announcement cards from the 1980s, which were donated to the college by Matthew Rose.


Artist and Professor Joan Harrison worked tirelessly to get the work into the collections at CW Post. Along with ABAD artist and Post alumna LuAnn Palazzo, she co-curated the wide ranging exhibition  Ray Johnson and A Book About Death in 2010 at CW Post. 

Joan writes: "Don't you love the signage? 'A Bad Archive.' Ray would have loved that and would have had to make a 'Good' archive."

The Post librarians and specialists who archived and stored the collection are pictured here: top – Jarron Jewell, Senior library assistant; middle – Erin de Marco Library School Graduate student, Queens College; and bottom – Bonnie Gallagher, Library School Graduate student, LIU Post.

CURATORS' STATEMENT

In this 1983 photograph taken at Curator Joan Harrison’s wedding to Michael E. Ach, (SVPA
alumni, #205); Frank Olt (alumni, SVPA faculty #86) converses with Ray Johnson while Joan
Harrison (alumni, SVPA faculty #17) talks with SVPA Dean Emeritus, Lynn Croton (#157).
The photograph was taken by Lorraine Darconte (SVPA Alumni #1), former classmate and
best friend of Curator, LuAnn Pagano Palazzo (SVPA Alumni #9).
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Ray Johnson was all about creative connection. Today, fifteen years after his death, the bonds of his creative legacy and the bonds of friendship here at C. W. Post are still strong and defined by a sense of shared creative history and purpose. The evidence is plain to see through this exhibition.

Many of the artists taking part in this exhibition knew Ray Johnson personally or were correspon-
dents of his, while others are alumni, faculty and students of the university. Even more are part of a creative global network who have been inspired by Ray’s work and moved by the universal theme to answer the call to communicate.

We would like to thank Matthew Rose, the father of the original ABAD Project in 2009, and all those at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University who helped make this exhibition possible. Our special thanks go to Dean Benjamin Moore of the School of Visual and Performing Arts, who, when approached with the idea said simply, “Do it!”

Most of all, we feel deeply grateful to our international roster of contributing artists for sharing their vision, their thoughts, their humor and their remembrances of loved ones lost. The outpouring of love and dedication to this project, and to this show in particular, has been quite literally overwhelming.

Art is a celebration of life lived to its fullest and to quote poet W. H Auden, “Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.”

Joan Harrison and LuAnn T. Palazzo
October 31, 2010

Joan Harrison [17]

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In memory of Marco












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www.joanharrison.com
Contact Joan Here