How to Draw a Bunny

Although I am an artist, I hadn't ever even heard of Ray Johnson until I stumbled upon this movie on the Sundance Channel. What a treat. It's interviews with people who "knew" Johnson - I don't think anybody really knew him.

He was very eccentric, e.g., if he was mad at you and you called him, he'd put the phone down without hanging up and go about his business - the caller could hear him moving around in the background. After some time - always varying - he'd pick up the phone, say "hello" and things would go on as if nothing had ever happened.

He really invented "mail art", sending collages to friends. He made up cost lists for his paintings, offering reductions if he cut part of the drawing/painting out.

I loved this film.

"How to Draw a Bunny" is a documentary about Raymond Johnson, an eccentric modern artist (isn't that a redundancy?), whose suicide by drowning in early 1995 was thought by many to have been his final and most grandiose act of "performance art." Famous for his trademark "bunny" signature, Johnson made his name primarily as a producer of abstract paintings and collages built on iconic images from the pop culture world around him.

The film provides a generous sampling of Johnson's work, along with interviews with counterculture friends and supporters who often seem more bizarre and "out there" than Johnson himself reportedly was - although in the few video clips we see of Johnson, he really does seem to be operating in his own little different-drummer world. However, one of the problems with choosing Johnson as the subject of a documentary is that he was so innately reticent about himself that it was hard even for people who were close to him to get to know who he really was. Interviewee after interviewee makes this point about him, and yet these were the people who actually knew him! How much more difficult is it for us then - who didn't know him at all or knew him strictly through the work of his we saw and admired - to find out who he was. Thus, right from the get-go, the film faces self-imposed limits on just how revelatory it can end up being. In a similar way, despite all the words uttered about the works themselves by the people being interviewed, the film offers us surprisingly little analysis of the artwork's underlying significance and "meaning." As one of the women interviewed tells us, she never really understood what Raymond was trying to say through his works; she just enjoyed the thrill of experiencing them. And, perhaps, that is the best way to approach "How to Draw a Bunny" itself. Don't go into it expecting a deep and profound examination of all that it is showing us; just enjoy the artwork for its own intrinsic value and sake. That's probably the way Johnson would have wanted it anyway.

It is obvious his suicide was planned and it was a work of art. It seems so. I had to watch this film for a abnormal psych class and i'm supposed to determine the diagnosis for this guy, this is something that Ray Johnson himself would probably love, because he's see it as a game, and he was constantly playing games, loving playing games, always living in a game.. i guess, from seeing the film. When he was younger I don't know if he was like this, he seemed to develop this was of being after being in the art game? for a while. He is a very lovable character, a real character.. "a pure spirit," "incorruptable".. according to one of his former lovers and artist friend of many years. It seems no one really knew him well in the film except for this one man. I guess if you want to get to know Ray Johnson, you can talk to him. But, mostly you can refer to the messages in his art. Like the message in a bottle and then a body in the water.. it can tell a story.

What is so remarkable to me is that he is willing to die for this to be his life.. you reap what you sow seems a banal comment to make on this.. he was .. art. so he died as a part.

playing a part.

another deadly da da ist joke.

when he set up his house as a studio highly organized work space

This documentary provides a much different angle on the presentation of subject, and this is what makes it exciting. That we cannot ever know Johnson, especially in light of the fact that he has committed suicide, makes the entire exercise all the more intriguing. Interview after interview evinces an all-too-rare character study of someone who simply did not want to be known. The art of this concealment builds to an exhilaratingly creepy conclusion that will be familiar to anyone who has been affected by suicide. How can we think we know someone who commits this unthinkable act? The segments regarding Johnson's rope-a-dope art dealings and coyness about capital is worth the price of admission alone. His influence is everywhere in the art world to this day, and yet few will remember him.

I had no idea what this documentary was about going in, but a week after watching it, the movie and the artist at its core, Ray Johnson, still haunt me. This is a movie about a person who really had no real life or essence except his art and his ideals. People in his life tell stories about him to try to piece together who he really was and what his life was all about. I don't know that there's ever been an artist or person like Ray Johnson. The curator of his art show says she feels totally "manipulated" by him. Like he left clues so she would know exactly what to do. After you see the film, you may feel as I do, that the film makers made exactly the film Ray Johnson would have wanted. Very spooky in parts, and utterly fascinating. It's practically a who's who of the pop art world.