Mail Art

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Ray Johnson's invitation card for the first Mail Art Show, 1970

Mail Art [ mɛɪl aː (ɹ) t ] ( English "Post Art"), also called Correspondence Art [ kɔɹɛs'pɔndns ] (English " Correspondence Art ") by its co-founder Ray Johnson , is art by mail .

definition

Mail Art primarily refers to the letters, cards, objects and documentation of campaigns, exhibitions and other art projects that are sent, sent, collected and archived by the Mail Art artists. More important than the material objects, however, is the process of the continued collective self-creation of the network by its actors , i.e. action and communication : Mail Art is a net art . In the context of media theories and conceptual art since the 1960s, the objects and messages sent by mail artists or networkers were only seen as traces of the extensive artistic, political and philosophical enterprise Mail Art . Based on the term “Fête Permanente / Eternal Network” of Fluxus artist Robert Filliou , Mail Art is often understood by those involved as an “eternal network” that is open to everyone, regardless of whether they see themselves as a non-artist or as an artist. Mail Art has a non-commercial character and maintains a distance from the art market.

As a social and political medium, Mail Art was a means of resistance in the dictatorships of Latin America and Eastern Europe . Like conceptual art, Mail Art bypasses the usual distribution channels such as galleries, art dealers or museums and is therefore difficult to control. Therefore, some subcultural groups, for example from the punk and industrial music environment , took part and made contributions to the network.

history

The term Mail Art was coined in 1971 by the art critic and curator Jean-Marc Poinsot , but only adopted in the Mail Art network itself after an article by the artist David Zack in 1973 in the January issue of Art in America magazine . Its origins, however, lie in the New York Correspondance School founded by Ray Johnson , a network of artistic correspondence in the area of Neo Dada , Fluxus , Pop Art and the New York art scene.

Robert Rehfeldt , Ben Vautier , Wolf Vostell, and Ken Friedman also participated in early Mail Art projects.

In terms of art history, however, Mail Art was only briefly perceived as significant. From 1970 onwards, Mail Art differentiated itself from the rest of contemporary art and produced its own artists who worked primarily or exclusively in its network. These included the Canadian artist group “General Idea”, whose magazine “FILE” imitated the typography of the magazine “LIFE”, as well as the “Bay Area Dadaists” in San Francisco around Anna Banana and Bill Gaglione, whose magazine “VILE” in turn changed to “FILE “Alluded to. One of the first worldwide networks was the information sheet "IAC-INFO" (IAC = International Artists' Cooperation ) published by Klaus Groh , of which 40 copies were published. From the mid-1970s, performance artists such as COUM Transmissions (later renamed Throbbing Gristle ) and Monte Cazazza were also active in the Mail Art network, who became the founders of industrial music . In the 1980s, Neoism emerged from Mail Art.

After the “iron curtain” was opened, Mail Art lost its original meaning as a distribution instrument. Secret service surveillance of Mail Art has been discontinued. The calls for help from the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the countries of the Latin American military dictatorships changed into a new aesthetic form of letter communication that ended up in spheres of visual and concrete poetry. Since the early 90s the focus is of the common creation of visual poetry in the broadest sense-oriented within the mail art artists 'books and artists' magazine has become. Editors such as Hartmut Andryczuk , Guillermo Deisler , Vittore Baroni, Karl-Friedrich Hacker, Schoko Casana Rosso , Ryosuke Cohen and Francis van Maele u. a. served and serve as control centers.

Mail Art and Internet Art

The media-theoretical meaning of Mail Art only becomes apparent in relation to later developments such as digital net art or net art, or in relation to the exchange in mailboxes and on Usenet. Mail Art is not analogue Internet art by post, but it did reveal strategies and phenomena early on that later manifested themselves in telematic art and other artistic appropriations of the Internet.

From the beginning, Mail Art was a network art that reflects itself, creates artistic identities and virtual people and changes the social behavior of the participants. This is made possible because Mail Art sees itself as DenkArt. I am sending you a thought. Please think him further. (Robert Rehfeldt)

Preforms of the idea of avatar can be found, for example, in the multiple identity Monty Cantsin invented by David Zack or in the Cavellini Foundation .

Mail Art Archive

The resulting Mail Art Archives are of great importance for scientific research purposes . The most extensive at the moment are the “ art pool ” archive founded by György Galantai in Budapest and the “ boek 861 ” archive in Tarragona, founded by César Regulator Campus . Eastern Europe is also included in the Mailart archive of the State Museum Schwerin . The Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt maintains a large archive . The Kleist Museum Frankfurt (Oder) also has a very small archive in the so-called Kleist WG, a school pedagogical project. The collection of the Mail Art Archive [Franziska] Dittert (see literature) is related to her publication from 2010.

List of international mail art artists (selection)



literature

  • Theo Breuer : Art, Communication and Correspondence: Mail Art or what . In: From the hinterland. Poetry after 2000 , Edition YE, Sistig / Eifel 2005, pp. 273–300.
  • Theo Breuer: Mail Art or what . In: Boris Kerenski & Sergiu Stefanescu (eds.): Kaltland Beat. New German scene. Ithaka Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 268-276.
  • Guy Bleus: Are You Experienced? LHF & S. Exhibition catalog, University Brussels, (incl. 17 microfiches), 1981.
  • Michael Crane and Mary Stofflet (Eds.): Correspondence Art . San Francisco 1984.
  • Franziska Dittert: Mail Art in the GDR. An intermedia subculture in the context of the avant-garde . Berlin 2010.
  • Klaus Groh: Mail Art , exhibition catalog of the Mail Art Archive Klaus Groh in the Vienna Secession. Vienna 1984.
  • Klaus Groh: Mail Art - Correspondence Art, an artistic fringe activity or a serious field of activity for free communication between peoples . In: Fine arts in Eastern Europe in the 20th century . Berlin 1991.
  • Klaus Groh: Current Art in Eastern Europe - Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary . Cologne 1972.
  • John Held Jr .: Mail Art. An Annotated Bibliography . London 1991.
  • Ruud Janssen: Mail Art Statements Collection , Breda 2009.
  • Ruud Janssen: Mail Interview Project (Volumes 1-5) . Breda 2009.
  • Wilfried Nold (Ed.), Box Museum . Frankfurt am Main 1996.
  • Chuck Welch: Networking Currents . USA 1986.
  • Chuck Welch: Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology . University of Calgary.
  • Jean-Marc Poinsot: La Communication à distance et l'objet esthétique . In: Biennale Catalog , Paris 1971, pp. 63–69.
  • Jean-Marc Poinsot: Les Envois postaux: nouvelle forme artistique? In: Les Chroniques de l'Art vivant , N ° 18, 03/1971, p. 8.
  • Jean-Marc Poinsot: Mail Art: Communication A Distance Concept . Paris 1971.
  • Friedrich Winnes and Lutz Wohlrab: Mail Art Scene GDR 1975–1990 . Berlin 1994.
  • Guy Bleus: Mail Art . Provinciaal Museum, Hasselt, Belgium, 1994.
  • Kornelia von Berswordt-Wallrabe: Eastern Europe in the international network Mail Art , Schwerin 1996.
  • Kornelia Röder: Topology and Functionality of the Network of Mail Art , Bremen 2008. At the same time Diss. University of Bremen 2006. English summary , 20 p., As pdf
  • Franziska Dittert: Mail Art in the GDR: An Inter-Media Subculture in the Context of the Avant-Garde . Logos Verlag, Berlin, 2010. ISBN 978-3-8325-2618-4
  • Niels Peter Lomholt and Lene Aagaard Denhart: Lomholt Mail Art Archive . Form Press, Denmark, 2010.
  • György Galántai and Júlia Klaniczay (eds.): Artpool. The Experimental Art Archive of East-Central Europ e, Budapest, 2013. ISBN 978-963-08-7225-6 .

Web links

Commons : Mail Art  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files


Web links to collections and archives

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hilke Wagner: Mail Art . In: Hubert van den Berg, Walter Fähners (Ed.): Metzler Lexikon - Avantgarde . Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart - Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-01866-3 , pp. 201 f .
  2. ↑ Cristina and Jürgen Oliver Blank: Mailart In. Retrieved January 21, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Hans Braumüller: Crosses.Net. Retrieved November 9, 2019 .