[New York]: self-published,1964. Offset lithograph printed on recto, 14 x 8.5 inches. Double Parallel Fold.
Subtle toning to margins, faint creases from having been sent folded in the mail.
Page 12 from a series of 13 unbound pages that comprise Ray Johnson's "A Book About Death". Each page was printed individually by Johnson at the Pernet Printing Company between the years of 1963-1965 and mailed out to members of the New York Correspondence School, though he intentionally did not send every page to any singular person. The sequencing of pages as presently known was done by Clive Phillpot, a close friend of Johnson s and former librarian of the Museum of Modern Art.
"If A Book About Death were finished, it would lose much of its meaning as a process rather than a product. A Book About Death, first planned as a whole that could close around itself like the ouroboros on PAGE 1, had to become an open book, indefinite and undecidable. For Ray, a closed book could be like a death, just as dying could be like closing a book. Because Ray wanted death to be an open book, his A Book about Death had to remain incomplete, with pages that would never be read." - Bill Wilson, A Book About A Book About Death.
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