Mail Art

Called Mail Art [ mɛɪl a ː ( ɹ ) t] (English " mail art " ), by its co-founder Ray Johnson also Correspondence type [ kɔɹɛs'pɔndns ] (English " correspondence art" ), is an art by post and therefore the most sublime form of correspondence.

Definition

Mail Art called the superficial sent over the net of a postal service letters, cards, objects and documentation of actions, exhibitions and other art projects that are produced by the mail art artists, sent, collected and archived. An important than the material objects, however, is the process of continued collective self-creation of the network by its actors, ie action and communication: mail art is a net art. In the context of media theories and conceptual art since the 1960s, sent by mail artists or networkers objects and messages were only traces of full artistic, political and philosophical Company Mail Art Inspired by the concept of " Fête Permanente / Eternal Network " the Fluxus artist Robert Filliou is often understood by participants as "Eternal network" which is open to everyone, regardless of whether he sees himself as a non-artist or artists as mail art. Mail Art has a non-commercial character and maintains distance from the art market.

As a social and political medium Mail Art was a means of resistance to the dictatorships of Latin America and Eastern Europe. As conceptual art bypasses the usual distribution as mail art galleries, art dealers and museums and is therefore difficult to control. Therefore took some subcultural groups, such as the environment of punk and industrial music, and some 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 take effect after the artist David Zack Article 1973 in the January issue of the magazine Art in America in the mail art network itself. Its origins lie in, which was founded by Ray Johnson New York Correspondance School, a network of artistic correspondence in the context of Neo Dada, Fluxus, Pop Art and the New York art scene.

Fluxus artist Ben Vautier like, Vostell and Ken Friedman also participated in early mail art projects.

Art history, mail art has been only briefly perceived as significant. From 1970, the Mail Art from the rest of contemporary art is differentiated from and produced their own artists working primarily or exclusively on their network. These included the Canadian artists' group General Idea ", whose magazine" FILE " the typography of the magazine" LIFE " imitated, as well as the " Bay Area Dadaists " in San Francisco by Anna Banana and Bill Gaglione, whose magazine" VILE " turn on " FILE " alluded. One of the first worldwide popular networks was edited by Klaus Groh info sheet " IAC- INFO " (IAC = International Artists' Cooperation) of which 40 copies were published. From the mid- 1970s also performance artists were like COUM transmission (later renamed Throbbing Gristle ) and Monte Cazazza in the mail art network active, who became founders of industrial music. In the 1980s, the Neoismus from the mail art emerged.

After the fall of the " iron curtain " lost mail art their original meaning as a distribution tool. The cries 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 written communication that landed in the spheres of visual and concrete poetry. Since the early 90s, the focus of the co-authoring of visual poetry in the broadest sense -oriented artists 'books and the artists' magazine has become within the mail art. Publisher as Hartmut Andryczuk, Guillermo Deisler, Vittore Baroni, Karl -Friedrich Hacker, chocolate Casana Rosso, Ryosuke Cohen and Francis van Maele, inter alia, served and serve here as a control centers.

Mail art and internet art

The media- theoretical significance of Mail Art becomes apparent only in relation to later developments such as digital net art or net art, or in relation to the exchange in mailboxes and on Usenet. Although mail art is not analogous Internet art by post, but left early to recognize strategies and phenomena that later ausprägten in telematic art and other artistic appropriation of the Internet.

From the outset, mail art was a network of art that reflects yourself, artistic identities and virtual people brings forth and changed social behaviors of the participants. This is possible, because mail art is always DenkArt. " I send you to a thought. Please consider it further. " (Robert Rehfeldt )

Preforming the idea of ​​"Avatar" can be found, for example, such as invented by David Zack multiple identity Monty Cantsin or in the " Cavellini Foundation".

Mail Art Archive

For scientific research purposes are incurred mail art archives of great importance. The currently have the most comprehensive archive founded by György Galantai in Budapest " art pool " and the archive founded by César Reglero Campus " boek 861 " in Tarragona. Eastern Europe is also considered in the mail art archive of State Museum Schwerin. A very small archive also introduces the Kleist Museum in Frankfurt (Oder) in the so-called Kleist -WG, a school educational project.

List of international mail art artists (selection)

  • Vittore Baroni
  • Guy Bleus
  • Guillermo Deisler
  • Reinhard Döhl
  • Leonhard Frank Duch
  • Klaus Groh
  • H. R. Fricker
  • Rüdiger Heins
  • David Horvitz
  • Joseph W. Huber
  • Ruud Janssen
  • Birger Yesh
  • Ray Johnson
  • Hendrik Liersch
  • Henning Mittendorf
  • Horst Tress
Sublime (philosophy) Punk subculture Coum Transmissions Staatliches Museum Schwerin
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