Nothin' from Nothin' Leaves Nothin'

I think everyone would agree that a 1,000,000 piece jigsaw puzzle is hard to figure out. You have to put all those tiny intricate pieces together to understand the big picture. Now, imagine the same puzzle, but with a few thousand pieces missing and the remaining pieces scattered around the country. Then you have Ray Johnson. Ray was an enigma, but not like Joseph Beuys or Allan Kaprow. He simply didn't let people into his psyche in its entirety. He would let individuals see different parts of his life occasionally, but he never let anyone far enough in to make any real sense of the big picture that was his persona.
His mail art is what eventually allowed people to network together to try to make sense of his life.  He also did highly impressive collage portraits using silhouettes as well as his performances pieces called (in obvious mockery of Kaprow) "nothings." Overall his pieces were really done for himself rather than for his friends or audiences.

Excerpt: The Ray Johnson Videos Sampler from Robert Rodger on Vimeo.

Ray's personality of disregard for his audience is in distinct opposition to a speaker I recently heard, Mary Jane Jacob. Her work, from curatorial to public to philanthropic, is strictly about the audience. Her process for creating begins not with WHAT she wants to create, but WHY she is creating something. She then moves on to find other artists who she can collaborate with to make her work happen, plans the work, and then executes it. Her supreme ability to tap into what a community desires and values in terms of public art has really and truly made all the difference when it comes to her success.