From Jean Hugues (46 Rue de Gesvres, 60000 Beauvais, France) I received a letter with his project. He writes that “The History of Mail-Art is very well documented”. I wrote him that I don’t agree. All fragments are places in archives of the mail-artists that are active for over decades. But also new archives pop-up, and old ones are closed down.
A sample: On the wikepedia encyclopaedia there is an article about mail-art. The text is written by several mail-artists, but they don’t know everything. They give as an example of the longest run mail-art project Brain Cell. Surely this is a good example, but I know of two project that have run longer. Robin Crozier’s Memory is a nice example. A proof could be that I publish one of the memories that I saw first in 1985. The project run till his death. Also my TAM-Rubberstamp Archive project started in 1985 and still sheets are sent out (see exhibitions in San Francisco and this month in Moscow. The sheets have been sent out almost 20 years. I have in my collection Brain Cell #1, and about 300 more sheets since I sent Ryosuke a lot of mail. But it isn’t the longest run project yet.
Just an example of what sometimes happens in mail-art. One only sees the network that one has build around him/her but doesn’t realize that there are so many different networks. When someone writes a book about mail-art from inside (like the – for insiders famous- books by Vittore Baroni, John Held, Henryk Gajewsky, Geze Perneckzky, ChuckWelsh) they only give a documentation of the mail-art network as they see it. If they don’t know you, you aren’t mentioned. There is hardly done professional research by someone outside the mail-art network. And another sample of where it can go wrong. The best documentation I have seen about mail-art is the “Wold Atlas” by Geza Perneczky in Koln, Germany. Unfortunately it never got published. I have read the concept of the first 500 pages, and was very impressed. So please, don’t claim to know all about mail-art. Even after being part of this network for 25 years I still discover new things and get in contact with people who were active for decades and I never heard of before.
3 comments:
Dear Ruud!
But project of Ryosuke Cohen is really on-going during a lot of years. Your "TAM Rubberstamp archive" project has long pauses, and You officially finished it in 2000, as I remember.
And the best research work I've seen is dissertation about mail art by ClassWar Karaoke. It can be reachable by means libraries interchange - I've seen copy at Michael Lumb in Ipswich. Another good works wrote Honoria (partly published in Internet) and Michael Lumb (published in Internet, on Your site too). Very valuable source of information is site of John Held Jr with a lot of his old articles. It's besides books mentioned by You.
Yes, mail art is not so good documented as Dada or Surrealism, especially after 1985 (exhibitions and bibliography from 1970 till 1985 researched John Held Jr., and we have clear picture what happened this time), but it's well enough documented movement. Certainly, nobody knows all, but the same we can say about all other art-movements, even about impressionism.
With best wishes,
Juri
What is official in mail-art. The sheets I send out nowadays normally don't end up here, but somewhere in the USA, Belgium, or even Russia.
The two books you mentioned are also good sorces, but also from inside the mail-art network. ClassWar I corresponded with during the writing of his thesis. Never saw the finish result since he moved to a new address and I don't have that.
There are many more thesises written about mail-art. Most never got into the mail-art network. A good sample is by Carola van der Heijden, who got her degree at the University of Leiden on a thesis on Mail-Art. She learned mail-art by participating while doing the research for the thesis.
My comment was mostly on the fact that there are little objective documentations about outsiders. You know that if you are 'inside' the movement, one tends to be subjective.
Ruud
Dear Ruud!
"There are many more thesises written about mail-art. Most never got into the mail-art network."
But You can ask this thesises in Library, if You know exact title and name of author. As any other mail artist. In theory.
"My comment was mostly on the fact that there are little objective documentations about outsiders."
I can not agree. If You'll study "Mail art bibliography" by John Held Jr, then You'll find a lot of articles published by non-mail artists about mail art. "Even in Russia". Ideal is unreachable. Mail artists always thought about documentation - so it's well-documented really. And by outsiders too.
With best wishes,
Juri
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