RJ with PLEASE SEND TO REAL LIFE and camera in mirror

This self-portrait appears on a roll of film Johnson turned in for developing about three weeks before his suicide by drowning on 13 January 1995. The flopped lettering on the Movie Star in his hand undergoes a further reversal in the mirror. On a literal level, the words “REAL LIFE” refer to the New York–based art magazine REALLIFE (1979–94), which Johnson hoped would soon publish an article about his yearslong collaboration with a friend, Sheila Sporer. But the message unmistakably announces, too, that the artist was soon to venture beyond the reach of “real life.”