A round-eyed, long-nosed bunny head functioned as Johnson’s signature and, as he said, “a kind of self-portrait.” Despite the bunny’s blank expression, context can render it comical, hapless, sinister, or obscene. Johnson altered Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s photograph of a rumpled empty bed—an iconic image of gay mourning during the AIDS crisis—by resting a lone bunny’s head on one of the two pillows. Johnson cut a face-sized hole out of one bunny, then photographed the view outside his front window through the gap. He gave the same bunny to passersby to wear and, once, laid it suggestively atop his toilet bowl. When a large old tree next door was being chainsawed apart, Johnson found in its branching form a gaunt, eyeless bunny’s face.
Ray Johnson (1927–1995)
Bunny drawn on Felix Gonzalez-Torres's
"Untitled"
2 January 1994
Commercially processed chromogenic print
4 × 6
The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of the Ray Johnson Estate, courtesy of Frances Beatty; 2022.2:72
© Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Ray Johnson (1927–1995)
Long Dong Silver, Lattingtown Beach
16 November 1993
Commercially processed chromogenic print
4 × 6
The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of the Ray Johnson Estate, courtesy of Frances Beatty; 2022.2:67
© Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Ray Johnson (1927–1995)
Half bunny on manhole cover
summer 1992
Commercially processed chromogenic print
4 × 6
The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of the Ray Johnson Estate, courtesy of Frances Beatty; 2022.2:120
© Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Ray Johnson (1927–1995)
Six Movie Stars in RJ's car
April 1993
Commercially processed chromogenic print
4 × 6
The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of the Ray Johnson Estate, courtesy of Frances Beatty; 2022.2:63
© Ray Johnson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York