Ray Johnson in London Feb 2009 emphasis on mail-art

[Tamara Wyndham]

www.ravenrow.org
Raven Row – 56 Artillery Lane, London e1 7ls –


Raven Row is a new non-profit contemporary art exhibition centre at 56 Artillery
Lane, Spitalfields, E1, which will open to the public on 28 February 2009.
Behind one of the finest eighteenth-century shopfronts in London, situated on a
street whose original name it has retained, Raven Row will present five
exhibitions a year in a series of historic rooms onto which leading young UK
practice 6a Architects have added two contemporary galleries.

Raven Row’s inaugural exhibition will be the largest yet in Europe of the collages
and mailings of Ray Johnson, described by the New York Times in 1965 as 'New
York's most famous unknown artist'. Johnson, who pioneered ‘mail art’, lived in
self-imposed exile from galleries between the seventies and his death in 1995.
Raven Row's programme is intended to appeal both to the specialist audience
and a broader, curious public. It is led by a desire to show the most interesting
work that has somehow escaped London’s attention, both by established
international artists, and by those whose practice has eluded the canons of art
history.

Flats in the building’s upper floors will host visiting artists and curators and
occasional residencies organised by invitation. The first residency by the activist
sound collective Ultra-red starting in March 2009, will coincide with Raven
Row's second exhibition, of work by German pop artist Thomas Bayrle and
Danish film and sound artist Ann Lislegaard. Other exhibitions in 2009 will
include a collaboration between LA artist Dave Hullfish Bailey and London
artist Nils Norman, and the first UK exhibition of the video installations of
Harun Farocki, one of Germany's most significant filmmakers.
Four Corners Books, an acclaimed non-profit publisher of artists' books
and books on art, will be based in the building and will organise occasional
exhibitions and share events there.

Raven Row 's intention is to explore what it might mean to be of 'cultural value' to
London, and its programming model will be subject to regular scrutiny
and experiment. Attendance figures, accessibility, critical attention, and
educational use will all be taken into consideration, but the board is not
accountable to any of these indicators.

[Ruud Janssen]

who is going!?