Communicating from beyond

Have you ever felt like a thing was made especially for you at just the right time? This was my overwhelming impression as soon as I walked into the Art Institute’s Ray Johnson show. I didn’t know much about Johnson prior to a deep dive I took, prompted by this exhibition’s sprawling collection of his endeavors. In my experience, Ray Johnson’s reputation has been more often name-checked than explained. The mystery and misdirection, it turns out, were by design. Johnson w