"Untitled (Dorothea Lamourstuvwxyzabcdef) (1980-81-82-93, inscribed June 30, 1982) is reproduced from 'Frog Pond Splash: Collages by Ray Johnson with Texts by William S. Wilson' from @sigliopress ⠀ ⠀ Editor Elizabeth Zuba pairs this Johnson collage with the following text by Wilson.⠀ ⠀ Certainly no instruction in the history of the English alphabet can be interpreted as a rule for turning a letter on its side. Yet nothing can forbid it. Ray did it as a right, with implications for his other rights. In the adjustments of his vision, as he invents methods of saving himself. That the self-identical first letter of ZEN could become the different last letter of ZEN was an apologia, a self-defense. Ray was like a letter which survives as itself while also having the right to become a different letter. He survived as his identical self while also being a different self. His discovery was like a legitimation of his illegal turning of parts of his anatomy for other functions, as with his mouth and his anus. His penis was his archetypal image of his own principle of identity, the mode in which Z could be identified as N with a twist, being turned to function as an N which was still a Z. Z and N was an analogy to his penis participating in two systems. “Love has pitched his mansion/ In the place of excrement.” One letter of the alphabet, Z, got tickled into becoming another letter, N. The two letters enlivened each other by becoming one which was also two. He had tickled the ticklish word ZEN. He was tickled that Ray Johnson had justified Ray Johnson while putting both technology (the typewriter) and the system of the alphabet in their places. ⠀ ⠀ Read more via linkinbio.⠀ ⠀ @rayjohnsonestate #rayjohnson #williamswilson #frogpondsplash #collage https://www.instagram.com/p/CHvpYcbJlC9/?igshid=13zay5xe7x3il
