by John Walter and Andrew Moore

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the Fine Arts Theatre present the award-winning documentary How to Draw a Bunny as part of the exhibition From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967)

Thursday, April 8, 2010 - 7:00 PM

Fine Arts Theatre - 36 Biltmore Avenue, Downtown Asheville

$10 / $8 BMCM+AC members + students w/ID

John Walter and Andrew Moore's award-winning documentary tells the story of collage artist Ray Johnson, whose death was cloaked in mystery and whose life and art remain enigmatic. As one of the seminal figures in the Pop Art era, Johnson is known as the founding father of mail art and as a collagist extraordinaire. The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is currently presenting the exhibition From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967) running through June 12th.

How to Draw a Bunny, a 90 minute feature film on the artist Ray Johnson, which was awarded a Special Jury prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival & the Grand Prix du Public 2002 at the Rencontres Internationales de Cinema in Paris. The film was also nominated for a 2003 Independent Spirit Award.

How to Draw a Bunny explores the fascinating, often hilarious, and always enigmatic world of artist and underground icon Ray Johnson. A "Pop Art mystery movie", the film is framed by Johnson's mysterious suicide on Friday, January 13th 1995, the puzzling circumstances of which left both his intimate admirers and the general public wondering if this was a final "performance". Little has been written about him, yet the man who many have dubbed "the most famous unknown artist" was considered a genius whose career spanned nearly fifty years and whose collages have been exhibited in major museums around the world.

A seminal Pop Art figure, Ray Johnson has been called the most significant "unknown artist" of the post-war period, a "collagist extraordinaire" who influenced Pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, as well as a generation of contemporary artists. Since his death, however, Johnson has emerged not only as a key member of the 1960's generation, but as one of the major artistic innovators of the second-half of the 20th century.

Black Mountain College—in particular, Johnson’s first teacher, Josef Albers—was a critical factor in Johnson’s development as an artist. Indeed, Johnson’s time at the college can be viewed in retrospect as a platform from which he dove into Manhattan and its vibrant art world. Throughout his career, Johnson always found ways to engage those around him—mentors, friends and strangers alike—in a correspondence “dance” of collage, letter writing and interactive performance art. Following in Marcel Duchamp’s footsteps, Johnson, as one art critic put it, “introduced life into art.”

More information about From BMC to NYC: The Tutelary Years of Ray Johnson (1943-1967) can be found at www.blackmountaincollege.org and rayjohnsonshow.blogspot.com.

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is an exhibition space and resource center in downtown Asheville dedicated to exploring the history and legacy of the world's most acclaimed experimental educational community, Black Mountain College. Over the course of its 24 year history, Black Mountain College attracted and created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th century. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of BMC continues to reverberate.

Support for this project has been generously provided by: the North Carolina Arts Council, Asheville Area Arts Council, Henco Reprographics and many generous individual sponsors.