Ted Joans, Gregory Corso, Simon Watson Taylor, Charles Henri Ford, Joyce Mansour, Alberto Gironella, Jayne Cortez, Georges Gronier, Malangatana Valente Ngwenya, Milford Graves, Papa Ibra Tall, Lamine Dolo, Younousse Sèye, Mohamed Ajnakane, Mohammed Mrabet, Paul Bowles, Abdel Kader El-Janabi, Nanos Valaoritis, Marie Wilson, Laurens Vancrevel, Andrei Codrescu, Adrian Henri, Jim Burns, John Digby, Brion Gysin, Valery Oisteanu, LeRoy Clarke, Jack Micheline, Shel Silverstein, Michael Horovitz, Tuli Kupferberg, Édouard Roditi, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Gentiane Gaussot Taprah, David Gascoyne, Allen Ginsberg, Shirley Goldfarb, Peter Orlovsky, Robert Cordier, Cornelis "Kees" Buddingh', Kazuko Shiraishi, Natascha Ungeheuer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs, Enrique Hernández d'Jesús, David Henderson, Nancy Joyce Peters, Philip Lamantia, Thom Burns, Ishmael Reed, Ray Johnson, André Laude, Ronald Sukenick, Ruth Francken, Alan Ansen, Dorothea Tanning, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lou Laurin Lam, Jim Amaral, Michel Leiris, Robert Lebel, Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka), Amina Baraka, Simon Vinkenoog, Seymour Krim, Cecil Taylor, Michael McClure, Gustavo Ramos Rivera, Ahmed Yacoubi, Erró (Gudmundur Gudmundsson), Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Virginia Cox, Wole Soyinka, Romare Bearden, Jerome Rothenberg, Victor Hernández Cruz, Taylor Mead, Louis Lehmann, Robert Benayoun, Vincent Bounoure, Konrad Klapheck, Roger Cardinal, Roland Penrose, Woody van Amen, Alain Jouffroy, Roberto Matta, Breyten Breytenbach, Pavel Řezníček, Peter Wood, Bill Dixon, Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, Stanley William Hayter, Mário Cesariny, Inácio Matsinhe, Edouard Jaguer, Octavio Paz, Giovanna, Jean Benoît, John Ashbery, James Rosenquist, Hilary Booth, Larry Rivers, Merton Simpson, Robert Creeley, Susana Wald, Ludwig Zeller, Saúl Kaminer, Lois Mailou Jones, Penelope Rosemont, Franklin Rosemont, Betye Saar, Tony Pusey, Jacob Lawrence, Eva Švankmajerová, Martin Stejskal, Ludvík Šváb, Philip West, Alexander "Skunder" Boghossian, Robert LaVigne, Mark Brusse, Homero Aridjis, Robert Colescott, Robert Farris Thompson, Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr., Bruce Conner, David Hammons, Ron Sakolsky, Laura Corsiglia, Various Artists

Long Distance

1976–2005

Drawings: Ink, colored ink, crayon, and cut-and-pasted gelatin silver print on folded and perforated computer paper. "Skins": Paper and plastic bags and envelopes with printed papers, ink, string, stickers, tape, and beard trimmings

Not on view

A poet, jazz musician, and artist, Joans used perforated, accordion-folded printer paper as a readymade support for a vast iteration of the exquisite corpse game first made famous by European Surrealists in the 1920s. Carrying the folded work by hand during decades of travel across continents, Joans invited 132 “dream people”— visionary artists and writers with whom he felt a special affinity—to participate. Each participant added a single drawing, starting from the edge of the work of the person before them and without seeing the prior sequence until their new contribution was complete. Generating surprising connections between disparate artists, Long Distance crosses geographic and artistic boundaries.

Gallery label from

Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, November 3–February 22, 2024

Collaborating artist Gregory Corso, Simon Watson Taylor, Charles Henri Ford, Joyce Mansour, Alberto Gironella, Jayne Cortez, Georges Gronier, Malangatana Valente Ngwenya, Milford Graves, Papa Ibra Tall, Lamine Dolo, Younousse Sèye, Mohamed Ajnakane, Mohammed Mrabet, Paul Bowles, Abdel Kader El-Janabi, Nanos Valaoritis, Marie Wilson, Laurens Vancrevel, Andrei Codrescu, Adrian Henri, Jim Burns, John Digby, Brion Gysin, Valery Oisteanu, LeRoy Clarke, Jack Micheline, Shel Silverstein, Michael Horovitz, Tuli Kupferberg, Édouard Roditi, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Gentiane Gaussot Taprah, David Gascoyne, Allen Ginsberg, Shirley Goldfarb, Peter Orlovsky, Robert Cordier, Cornelis "Kees" Buddingh', Kazuko Shiraishi, Natascha Ungeheuer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs, Enrique Hernández d'Jesús, David Henderson, Nancy Joyce Peters, Philip Lamantia, Thom Burns, Ishmael Reed, Ray Johnson, André Laude, Ronald Sukenick, Ruth Francken, Alan Ansen, Dorothea Tanning, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lou Laurin Lam, Jim Amaral, Michel Leiris, Robert Lebel, Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka), Amina Baraka, Simon Vinkenoog, Seymour Krim, Cecil Taylor, Michael McClure, Gustavo Ramos Rivera, Ahmed Yacoubi, Erró (Gudmundur Gudmundsson), Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Virginia Cox, Wole Soyinka, Romare Bearden, Jerome Rothenberg, Victor Hernández Cruz, Taylor Mead, Robert Lebel, Louis Lehmann, Robert Benayoun, Vincent Bounoure, Konrad Klapheck, Roger Cardinal, Roland Penrose, Woody van Amen, Alain Jouffroy, Roberto Matta, Breyten Breytenbach, Pavel Řezníček, Peter Wood, Bill Dixon, Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, Stanley William Hayter, Mário Cesariny, Inácio Matsinhe, Edouard Jaguer, Octavio Paz, Giovanna, Jean Benoît, John Ashbery, James Rosenquist, Hilary Booth, Larry Rivers, Merton Simpson, Robert Creeley, Susana Wald, Ludwig Zeller, Saúl Kaminer, Lois Mailou Jones, Penelope Rosemont, Franklin Rosemont, Betye Saar, Tony Pusey, Jacob Lawrence, Eva Švankmajerová, Martin Stejskal, Ludvík Šváb, Philip West, Alexander "Skunder" Boghossian, Robert LaVigne, Mark Brusse, Homero Aridjis, Robert Colescott, Robert Farris Thompson, Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr., Bruce Conner, David Hammons, Ron Sakolsky, Laura Corsiglia, Various Artists
Medium Drawings: Ink, colored ink, crayon, and cut-and-pasted gelatin silver print on folded and perforated computer paper. "Skins": Paper and plastic bags and envelopes with printed papers, ink, string, stickers, tape, and beard trimmings
Dimensions approx., unfolded: 5 7/8 × 442" (15 × 1122.7 cm) approx., folded closed: 6 5/16 × 4 1/8" (16 × 10.5 cm)
Credit Werner H. Kramarsky Endowment for Drawings
Object number 216.2023
Department Drawings and Prints

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