Long before Poppy Johnson made Greenport her home, she was creating art in New York City.
“I think I always wanted to be an artist,” Johnson says. “It was interesting times to be an artist if you were a young person in the late ’60s, early ’70s in New York City.”
Her early practice included performances, happenings, and other temporary projects, and she became a member of the Guerrilla Art Action Group, an artist collective formed in 1969.
Johnson’s work with GAAG included an anti-Vietnam War action at the Museum of Modern Art on Nov. 18, 1969. Johnson and fellow group members staged a simulated war scene in the museum’s lobby and distributed a statement calling for the resignation of members of the Rockefeller family from MoMA’s board. The action linked the group’s opposition to the war with its criticism of the relationship among major cultural institutions, private wealth and the military-industrial complex.
That confrontational, ephemeral work represents only one part of Johnson’s long artistic career. She has also worked across collage, assemblage, photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. Many of the performances, installations and collaborations from her early years no longer exist and some paintings and drawings were lost over time.
That history helps explain why her upcoming exhibition at Floyd Memorial Library (539 1st St., Greenport, 631-477-0660) is titled Poppy Johnson: Introspective.
“It’s not a retrospective; it’s an introspective because what I’m showing is the actual work, like drawings and things that I made over these many years,” Johnson says. “Even when I was out there throwing blood around the floor of the Museum of Modern Art, I was also at home doing little drawings or collages or putting things together. I thought it would be interesting to look at all of that; I can look at it and be introspective.”
The exhibition, which opens Sept. 18 and runs through Nov. 29, brings together surviving works from different periods of Johnson’s life, including sculptures, assemblages, drawings, paintings, photographs and collages. An opening reception is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 18 at the library.
Johnson moved to Greenport in 1982. Four years later, she began working at Floyd Memorial as a part-time circulation clerk. She later became children’s librarian, reference librarian, adult services librarian and assistant library director, spending 35 years at the library before retiring in 2021.
The connection between Johnson and Floyd Memorial is therefore more than geographic. The library was a major part of her professional life, while art has remained a constant throughout. Now, the institution where she spent decades serving the community will host an exhibition devoted to her artistic history.
