Artistic More Than Anything Else

Dear Liz Kotz,

I am writing this letter to you because I was looking through a book of Ray Johnson’s correspondence works the other day and came across an image that reminded me of your writing about Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs. In your text, “Words To Be Looked At,” you explained that Kosuth’s work explores the relation between language, picture and referent, and brings up the question “what is real here?” Ray Johnson’s Correspondence sent to Joseph Cornell from Ray Johnson and Richard C. reminded me of you because underneath the signature of Ray Johnson there is a stamp stating “Fake Ray Johnson.” Although this letter in its entirety makes no sense to me whatsoever and I do not know the intention of the stamp, it translated to me as a way of stating that the letter is not actually by Ray Johnson but is a writing stating that it is by Ray Johnson. Furthermore, Richard C. concluding the letter with “Ray Johnsonly” makes me believe that the letter was comedically and intentionally written to sound as if it were written by Ray Johnson himself but in actuallity it was someone elses writing.
I was hoping that you could take a look at Johnson’s correspondence and provide me with feedback on what your take is on this rather confusing and seemingly random work that I view to be simply artistic more than it is anything else.