Mailart
Messageboardarchiv
MARCH
1999
Projects WITHOUT Deadline
are marked
Leaves on tour
Monday, 01-Mar-99 15:04:04
- 171.208.231.173
writes:
Leaves on tour
Send me leaves, any size, any color, any species. Send
them just like that or USE THEM to write, paint, print,
cut, stick, paste, burn, or what you want! If you know
the name of the plant, write it somewhere and put the
date of harvest. 
Deadline: end 1999.
Send to: HMA (Happy Mail Artists)
c/o Sébastien Vellut and Florence L.
153, Rue Verte
1030 Bruxelles
Belgium.
Documentation to all!
HMA (Happy Mail
Artists)
Another New York Times Article About Ray J.
Monday, 01-Mar-99 19:40:04
- 152.163.197.53
writes:
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/artleisure/johnson-artist.html
The New York Times
February 28, 1999
"Dear Friends of Ray Johnson, and Audiences of One"
RAY JOHNSON perpetrated art that made its recipients work.
For 40 years, with the collaboration of the Post Office,
he mailed out drawn, collaged and, in later years,
photocopied confections concocted from visual puns, Pop
Art references, the lives of friends, chance happenings
and weird news items. Something was asked of those who
encountered his deadpan performances or received his
quixotic letters: to focus for a moment, to add something,
to decipher the code, to pass it on. The workings of the
New York Correspondence School, as his mailings came to
be called, were well known to art-world insiders and,
after his 1970 "Ray Johnson New York Correspondence
School" exhibition at the Whitney Museum, to a
somewhat wider public. But the extent of his subversive,
hilariously conceived, intricately executed collages have
only begun to become evident with "Ray Johnson:
Correspondences." organized by Donna De Salvo for
the Wexner Center for the Arts and on view at the Whitney
Museum, through March 21.
The exhibition has brought to Johnson a recognition that
eluded him in the life that ended on Jan. 13, 1995, when,
at the age of 67, he dived from a Sag Harbor, N.Y.,
bridge and died, a probable suicide. Two girls noticed,
called the police, got no answer and went to the movies.
It was the sort of macabre detail that Johnson compiled
and transformed in his art. His friends believe his death
was his final performance.
Following are remembrances by people who knew Johnson,
gathered by Amei Wallach, who begins by offering one of
her own.
AMEI WALLACH,
art critic.
Ray Johnson was mugged about the same time Robert Kennedy
was assassinated and Andy Warhol was shot. Soon after
that, at age 40, he moved out of New York to Locust
Valley, N.Y., where I visited him in 1977, in his gray
clapboard house with white shutters. The Volkswagen in
the front yard had a Shelley Duvall photograph taped to
its side window. By then, Johnson, with his shaved head
and lashless blue eyes, looked suspiciously like a
character in a comic book. He helpfully supplied the name:
"Sluggo in the Nancy comic. Ernie Bushmiller drew
the strip." Then he stamped my notebook with an
Ernie Bushmiller Fan Club stamp. Also a Shelley Duvall
Fan Club stamp. And a Paloma Picasso Fan Club stamp. I
never did get upstairs, but just about all that was in
the front room was an enormous, loving-hands-at-home work
table and new work propped against walls badly in need of
paint. On the Masonite floor was a decrepit Oriental rug
dominated by an enormous gray paint spot that, Johnson
said, had been spilled "by the ghost of Janis Joplin."
The back room was stacked precariously with cardboard
boxes, hoards of Scotch tape, cans of Lucite wall paint,
bottles of Elmer's glue and a four-foot-high tower of New
York telephone books. "It took days to organize it,"
Johnson told me. He hadn't bothered with the kitchen,
where newspapers clogged the doorway and half-empty Camel
cigarette packs obliterated the counter.
At that point in the mid-1970's, Johnson had taken a hint
from the 16th-century Italian painter Arcimboldo and was
making punned, doodled, painted and collaged portraits
that began with silhouettes he would draw of friends and
strangers. He made some of me. "They're like a fly
in the face, not flattering, nor are they insulting,"
he said. "I've managed at this point to combine the
tragic with the comic, the ridiculous with the sublime."
JAMES ROSENQUIST,
artist.
I was introduced to Bob Rauschenberg through Ray in 1956,
and later I met Lenore Tawney and Agnes Martin through
Ray. The first time I visited Joseph Cornell, there was
Andy Warhol and Ray and Bob Indiana.
Then Ray moved to Locust Valley. He sent me things in the
mail to send on to other people, and when they were
really beautiful I'd keep them. Usually they were funny,
bizarre, very mysterious, beautiful things -- collages.
Once he sent me an image of Bill de Kooning's bicycle
seat. And he'd say, "Finish this portrait." So
I'd finish it, and send it on. Things like that I thought
I could understand, it was ironic and deep and funny. It
was also a very delicate vision. Ray's work has a
different kind of feeling than, say, Roy Lichtenstein's
or Andy Warhol's or mine. It was a much more personal,
private experience, a discovery kind of thing, not smack
dab in your face. He would say, "This weekend I
walked to all the mailboxes in Brooklyn." He had
probably put things in them. He would do that, it seemed
to me, a little bit like Zen: if you think you know
something, you realize you don't know it; then, when you
realize you don't know anything, something pops into your
head and your mind learns something. I miss Ray, because
whenever I find something that is really bizarre, I don't
have anyone to send it to.
BILL WILSON,
retired professor of English literature who has written
extensively on Johnson.
Very few people can accept that Ray killed himself, but
he was planning that when I met him in 1956. Ray lived on
behalf of religio-philosophic meanings, and he died on
behalf of those meanings. He called me from Orient Point
at 4 o'clock the day he died -- collect, so the phone
call is recorded on my phone bill. He meant his death by
drowning as a mailing event. When he sent works of art
through the mail to people as gifts, he was describing
what he thought were the correct relations among people.
Mail art meant that art should be free. He was able to
live without money for his needs, because he thought most
needs would be false. When he wrote to Joan Crawford, he
was giving her the chance to reply to him as a person. In
the art world, fame and money distorted all those
relations. I was with him in 1958 when Leo Castelli said,
"When are you going to let me show your collages?"
and Ray turned on his heel. One by one, as the artists he
knew became rich and famous, Ray satirized them or
tweaked them. But some of the artists, like Jim
Rosenquist, were able to continue like an all-American
boy to communicate with Ray. An envelope from Ray was
like a haiku, a moment of immediacy and indeterminancy, a
particularly vivid moment outside the economy, outside
the machinery of our culture. It was free.
ANDREW HOYEM,
poet and publisher, Arion Press.
I was in Texas with the United States Navy; it could have
been in 1958 or '59. I had helped with the publication of
a book by Paul Reps, a Zen practitioner, who called his
books picture poems. My name was in the back of the book
with an address, China Lake, California, and the address
seemed to charm Ray. He began sending me odd things in
the mail. Then I noticed his design on a paperback book
of poems by Rimbaud, and that opened a flood of
correspondence.
One time he sent me a cardboard box wrapped with twine,
and there was sealing tape around it, and I opened it in
my office and out poured these carpet sweepings. Later I
got involved in a small publishing company, and we had an
idea we would publish his work. The book never happened.
Ray could be very coy, and it took me a long time to
understand that the talking about it, the sending things
back and forth, was the thing. There was a literary bent
to Ray Johnson, his use of words, his deep involvement in
twists and turns of language, and his punning.
CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE,
artists.
Jeanne-Claude: We were living in Paris in 1962 and Sidney
Janis did an exhibition called "New Realists"
and invited Christo to show two works. Then we receive a
letter from a Mr. Ray Johnson, whom we don't know, saying,
"I have seen your package at the Sidney Janis
Gallery and I would really like to buy one." So
Christo made a package, he took a photograph of the
package, then he reopened the package and put the photo
inside with a note saying: "You said you wanted a
package. I sent you one. You destroyed it, and so I send
you a photograph. Keep it as a souvenir."
Christo: My letter was written in English or French, I
forget, and he incorporated it in some collage that was
sold to a collector.
Jeanne-Claude: When we arrived in New York in 1964, we
started inviting people to our room at the Chelsea Hotel,
and he was one of the very first phone calls we made. I
told him, "We'll have dinner together, but I have to
warn you we might not have enough forks; we might have to
eat the chicken with our fingers." And the day he
was supposed to come, a small, long, narrow package
arrived and inside were four forks and a note that said,
"Fear Four Forks." Then one day Ray was doing a
piece about toys, and he asked me what was my favorite
toy when I was a little girl, and I answered, I liked to
climb trees. He took an empty bottle of Bordeaux wine and
put a sticker on it, and he wrote "Trees" and a
little doodle.
JOHN WILLENBACHER,
artist.
I think the Christos and Ray were made for each other.
Both of their art is generous in that they reach out to
people. Ray was always illustrating the lives of people
he would meet. There was a gallery girl at the Feigen
Gallery, where I showed in the 60's -- Ray was showing at
Willard. And Ray was asking people to send bows to her at
the gallery, because not only did she wear big black bows
in her beehive hairdo, which fascinated Ray, but she also
had a live-in lover, which was unusual in those days. So
this was Ray Johnson's version of her beau.
One of the things I liked about Ray, he was a real scamp.
He sent me a reproduction of a photograph of a horse, and
he put little names all around the horse's anatomy with
little arrows. Robert Indiana got the ass. I was friends
with Robert Indiana in those days.
But I didn't go to many Correspondence School meetings. A
lot of them were very boring. They were like cocktail
parties without drinks.
CHUCK CLOSE,
artist.
I have rather strong feelings about the way Ray has been
dealt with as a willing outsider. He was an unwilling
outsider; he wanted to be an insider desperately. Ray was
an artist's artist, and he had many friends and fans who
tried for years to interest curators, museums and writers
in his work. You don't want death to become a great
career move, and dying and becoming famous is one of the
worst artist clichés, and basically it doesn't happen.
In Ray's case, since his suicide he has become far more
interesting to the art-world establishment. Without it,
would he be getting all this attention?
We used to talk usually every week. When I told him I was
doing an Artist's Choice show at the Modern ["Chuck
Close: Head-On/The Modern Portrait," 1991], which
consisted of portraits by artists in the museum's
collection, he was devastated, because he didn't have a
portrait in the collection.
So, the first thing he thought about was would the museum
buy something? Not likely. Then: what if he got a
collector to give something? But the wheels of an
institution like the Modern grind very slowly. So Ray, in
his perversely subversive way, knew that Clive Philpot,
the librarian at the Modern, never threw anything away.
And if Ray began to correspond with him, this guy would
compulsively log everything in and put it in boxes, which
would circumvent the problems of getting into the
collection. And Ray would get in through the back door.
So I call up Clive and say: I understand you have some
Ray Johnson. So I selected a black-and-white Xerox of a
bunny-head drawing, supposedly a portrait of Bill de
Kooning but, of course, all the bunnies look exactly
alike. I wanted to pick one that stood for Ray's
correspondence because it was as correspondence that it
got into the museum. It didn't have all the elegance and
likableness and the craft that go into Ray's work,
because that's not how it got into the Modern. I wanted
it to stand out for its difference.
So I selected this 8-by-10-inch Xerox that cost maybe two
cents to make and prominently put it into the exhibition
next to extraordinarily expensive pictures by van Gogh
and Picasso. It was a great triumph for him, and I think
the people at the Modern got a kick out of it too.
ARTHUR DANTO,
philosopher, critic.
I think he was the arch-insider, to tell you the truth.
He was so involved with so many people who defined an art
world at that time. What I think has to be brought out:
there is genuinely a gay esthetic in that operation, the
fanlike attitude toward movie stars, the prizing of camp
sensibilities, and I think he was very widely connected
with a lot of people who knew the answers and could see
his references and illusions. The Correspondence School
was a tremendous breakthrough. It enabled him to make art
of the kind he wanted for the people he wanted.
FRANCES BEATTY,
vice president of Richard Feigen & Co.
I met Ray probably 20 years ago, when I was I doing my Ph.D.
on Surrealist imagery, so you can imagine how interested
I was in him. I lived in this little apartment, and on
the wall I had 200 postcards of art from the 19th and 20th
century and the Renaissance that I was using to study for
my orals.
Ray walked in one night and he named practically every
one of them; you knew this was a man who had absorbed all
of art history. I joined the Feigen Gallery in 1980, and
Richard and I tried for 17 years to do a Ray Johnson show.
Ray was totally ambivalent. In the mid-1980's he said,
"I've got it, Frances, we'll have," pause,
"Nothing in the show." He wanted to be famous,
but he realized if he ever was famous, it would be the
end of his activity as an artist.
He called me about five days before he died, and he said:
"You know, Frances, I think I'm finished doing this
Nothing I'm involved in. I'm going to do Something, and
you're going to be able to do the show." And he
laughed this sweet Ray laugh, and then he jumped off the
bridge. It was a complete performance.
ASKalice
Back in action
Tuesday, 02-Mar-99 18:16:00
- 207.125.155.164
writes:
Hey everybody. I'm back in the land of the living &
thought I'd post a message to you all. I've been pretty
sick since Saturday (I have laryngitis and a rather large
touch of the flu), but I'm feeling well enough to type
again. I read your posts to update myself... And Merlin,
the art you posted was fabulous! It looked really good.
=) I've been doing quite a bit of art these past few days.
I've been stuck in bed with nothing to do..so naturally,
I grabbed my sketch pad and went to work. I plan on
sending in some submissions soon. =) Oh, by the way, Ken..I
got the package today. It's wonderful! Thank you so much!
Well, I guess that's all for now. I'm looking forward to
posting again..I'm sure all of you missed my long
messages. *chuckle*
Lauren
digimailart
Friday, 05-Mar-99 09:44:44
- 208.254.1.174
writes:
seeking links with digital artists to network in entire
cyber environment.
craigpurcell
Do you have any mail art informaion
Sunday, 07-Mar-99 04:11:23
Only mail-art projects or discussions?
Monday, 08-Mar-99 17:35:22
- 195.121.64.102
writes:
I notice the intention of this messageboard is to
publish mail-art projects. Wouldn't the readers
of this board be interested in some discussions
on the several topics in mail-art.
In my eyes these new electronic mediums are very
good for that.......
Ruud Janssen
|
E-Mail Art Call and Poster Show!
Tuesday, 09-Mar-99 12:40:49
Children's Mail Art Show
Tuesday, 09-Mar-99 21:29:16
- 208.15.188.197
writes:
March is National Youth Art Month in the United States.
In celebration of the event, kidscommons, a children's
museum and a group of visual artists in the central part
of the country are sponsoring a children's mail art show.
Although this is an American observance, we invite kids
from all over the world to participate.
By sponsoring the exhibit, we hope to provide children
the opportunity to express ideas about the future through
the visual arts, poetry, and music. In addition, the
exercise will teach local children about other countries
and their peoples. Our town, Columbus, Indiana is known
worldwide for its modern architecture and sculpture by
artists such as Henry Moore and Jean Tinguely. Now we'd
like to learn about you!
Following are the guidelines for participation.
*Eligibility: Children, ages 3 through 12
*Theme: Create a current self-portrait or illustrate how
you think you will look and dress as an adult in the next
millennium.
*Media: Any media, including collage, markers, crayons,
pen and ink, colored pencils, rubber stamps, tempera, and
watercolor. Use your imagination! Entries may be in the
form of poetry or musical compositions, too.
*Size and background: Maximum size is a 4"x6"
post card
*Show Rules:
No fees, no jury, no returns. All work will be exhibited
or performed. Create the art on one side, and print your
first and last names, city, state or province, country,
and age on the address side or back of the card.
*Exhibit:
Work will be exhibited on the Art Wall at kidscommons,
and poetry will be read and musical compositions
performed at a reception held in honor of the artists.
All names (first name and last initial only) of entrants
will be listed in a virtual catalog at the ARTColumbus
Web site: http://artcolumbus.hsonline.com. usA public
reception will be held April 1, 1999 to honor the artists.
*Send mail art to:
Mail Art-MB
c/o ARTColumbus
2438 Cottage Ave
Columbus IN 47201
United States of America
*For more details: See Youth Activities at the
ARTColumbus Web site at
http://artcolumbus@hsonline.com or visit the kidscommons
home page at http://www.kidscommons.com.
M. Brackney
Seven Deadly Sins
Tuesday, 09-Mar-99 23:42:24
Mailart Call
Saturday, 13-Mar-99 11:44:36
mail art calls
Wednesday, 17-Mar-99 03:06:49
- 193.207.112.142
writes:
Hi,Mail Art Friends! Because of the next cutting of my
Internet link(in my work place...)I kindly ask you to
send me by e-mail all the news about the next mail art
calls that you may know in the future. I thank you so
much, all the best! Fabio :)
fabio.sassi@transport.alstom.com
fabio sassi
Please, send me mail art calls by e/snail mail
Wednesday, 17-Mar-99 08:29:11
- 193.207.112.142
writes:
Hi, mail art friends! My connection with Internet will be
cut the next month... so, please, would you send me by e-mail
or snail mail the future mail art calls that you will
know? I thank you so much! Ciao! All the best! Fabio :)
fabio.sassi@transport.alstom.com
Fabio Sassi
via San Vitale 66
40125 Bologna ITALY
fabio Sassi
Mail Art Call - Marriage, Cryptic Style 6/99
Thursday, 18-Mar-99 15:40:29
- 128.32.78.49 writes:
Getting married in June and had to have a mail art event
in connection with this sea change in my real life. Met
this guy on the internet and now, 3 years later, we're
finally going to live on the same continent! ;-)
Theme: Marriage Cryptic Style
(see more details at: http://socrates.berkeley.edu:80/~cjatkins/cryptic/project7.html)
Deadline: June 12, 1999
No fees, no returns, catalog to all. Live show at wedding
reception June
27th; virtual show online July/August.
Send snail mail to: Carla Cryptic, PO Box 1274, Berkeley
CA 94701-1274
Send electronic submissions (or questions/comments) to:
cjatkins@socrates.berkeley.edu with 'marriage art' in the
subject line.
See you in the mail!
Carla Cryptic
Mail art Inforamtion want
Friday, 19-Mar-99 10:48:07
- 168.126.72.11
writes:
If you have any informationa about mail art or fax art
show please sent to me.
I'm living in Korea and many of artist will like to
attent coming all kind show.
Also if you need anything information about Korean art
please sent to me e-mail.
Thank you
Jimmy
pain/joy/anger-revealing what you really feel
Sunday, 21-Mar-99 12:32:24
- 205.188.199.184
writes:
feel free to be as unique as you want. i'm interested in
poetry, drawings, and any form of expressing what
feelings are deep inside. i want to see what's in your
heart through your art work only requirements- be
yourself
no deadline
i'll send you back my art about my turbulent emotions
my address is:
Diana Aronson
5 Lawnton Road
Willow Grove, PA 19090
Thanx!
Diana Aronson
thesis on mail-art
Sunday, 21-Mar-99 15:30:48
send me information,please.
Sunday, 21-Mar-99 16:38:31
- 200.5.249.20 writes:
info: mailart calls, and exchange artistamps . no
deadline.
ARTECORREO SUDACA
J.R. VELASCO # 816
1414 BUENOS AIRES
ARGENTINA
artecorreo sudaca
mail art calls
Monday, 22-Mar-99 14:43:55
- 195.178.32.62
writes:
Hi,
take a part, please in my new mail art project:
PHOTOBOOTH. Send me your photos from photo-
booth. No deadline, documentation to all parti-
cipiants.Don't send by email.Send me only to my address:
Igor Stevanovic
B.Jerkovic 215/17
11000 Beograd
Yugoslavia
Best wishes
Igor Stevanovic
FLUXUS BUCKS AGAIN!
Monday, 22-Mar-99 21:10:53
- 207.136.50.65
writes:
Big news! The Fluxus Bucks project that I started
in 1994 is coming to a (gradual) end and I'm
happy to announce that an actual show is
happening with them! IT's so cool! ArtCentre of
Plano (TX) will be the "host" and all
the bucks I've managed to hang onto over the
years and those that have returned home due to
the Fluxus Bucks Reunion call I've issued will be
there. The dates for the show are 10 July 1999
through 21 August 1999. After the show I'm
thinking I may do a Clearing House Giveaway of
the bucks along with mailing them back out to the
artists who have played. Archivists everywhere
squirm and beg, but I think they really just need
to go back out into the network.
Anyway, if you want to and have bucks you can
still send them to me! (please do!) If you don't
have bucks, but want them, I have a few unadorned
ones I can send--or you could make your own...there's
going to be a whole section of those!
ex posto facto
p.o.b. 495522
garland, tx 75049-5522
usa
Eventually there WILL be documentation, etc.
Patience is a virtue, you know.
xo,
epf
p.s. more info at my website, The Atmospheric
Cookie!
http://members.tripod.com/~anniespark1e/links.html
ex posto facto
|
Question for God
Tuesday, 23-Mar-99 21:08:57
- 152.163.195.197
writes:
A Mail Art Project:
If you could ask God a question, what would it be?
Please send your questions to:
Thompson
3023 N. Hyde Ave.
Panama City, FL 32405 USA
If I get enough replies, I'll print a list of all the
questions in Mid-2000 and send it out to all who sent a
question.
Thompson
It's raining cats and dogs
Wednesday, 24-Mar-99 17:06:08
- 212.45.132.123
writes:
What's happening to animal life? Going to liberation or
defeat? If you want to participate to my project pls send
your work in free technic within 30 june 1999 to:
VITA ANIMALE
Linda Pelati
Via Bellagio 3
20158 MILANO MI
ITALY
you'll receive catalogue after exhibition
ALL THE BEST
(My life is emotional as mail art is.)
CLOCHART
send a self portrait
Thursday, 25-Mar-99 15:49:51
- 24.112.122.22
writes:
Take part in my new mail art project:
send me a notebook filled with collages, drawing, writing,
etc. (four pages and up) depicting yourself, your life: a
self portrait. and you will get a show in my web site at
http://www.photomontage.com
documentaiton to all.
send by email or snail mail
deadline :
sept 1.1999
address
shirin
170 East 5th street #107
North Vancouver, BC
canada
shirin
Mail Art Call: Moving without Motion
Saturday, 27-Mar-99 02:26:08
- 209.179.12.77
writes:
Moving with Motion
this exhibit to run concurrently with my solo shows (acrylic
on canvas/panel-abstracts and ceramic vessels)here in Los
Angeles 1999. Ongoing exhibits throughout Los Angeles,CA
and Louisville,KY with possibilities in Atlanta and
Chicago.
You may send or email a brief bio or artist statement if
you prefer (please note alias names on bios, so they can
be matched to art).Those without will be shown
anonymously.
Call: Moving without Motion
Deadline:
July 31, 1999
all formats and mediums welcome, no size limitations.
no jury
no return
documentation to all participants and show credit
send to:
Moving without Motion
the Creative Eye studio
17827 Denker Avenue
Gardena, CA 90248
USA
First show reception is tentative for April 23/24, so all
received by April 16 will exhibit.
Look forward to your participation!
Re'
http://home.earthlink.net/~crazyre
BOMS on YUGOSLAVIA
Saturday, 27-Mar-99 03:22:43
dear Ruud,
Saturday, 27-Mar-99 07:57:53
Mail art trading!
Monday, 29-Mar-99 02:55:56
Partially New To This Game
Tuesday, 30-Mar-99 18:42:17
- 38.12.27.117 writes:
I partially new to mail art outside of corresponding with
artist friends. I would like to know a little more about
doing this(i.e. setting up shows, getting onto a network,
whatever) Can you just correspond with people without
setting up shows except maybe on a web page. Any help is
appreciated. Thanks.
Thorn
Re: Partially New To This Game
Tuesday, 06-Apr-99 11:00:47
- 204.134.97.20
writes:
Of course you can "just" correspond. Mail art
should be guilt free and freely done. I correspond with
hundreds of folks world wide. I contribute to some mail
art calls and I do some calls myself. I'm alittle slow on
my documentation but I do get it out. I have also
participated in calls and have never recieved
documentation......sigh....but hey, maybe they are just
slow like me!
Dragonfly Dream
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