MAIL ART H/STORY^Thefluxljs by Ken Friedman

Oisteanu, Valery: Illegal Mail Art (a poetical essay), in: Mail Art Then and Now, The Flue, Vol. 4, No. 3-4 (special issue), 1984 Winter, pp. 11-12. MAIL ART H/STORY^THEFLUXlJS Downloaded from http://artpool.hu/MailArt/chrono/1984/FluxusFactor.html snared works of Arman and Spoerri, the by Ken Friedman decollages of Hains and Dufrene and the world-embracing, massively realized projects of Christo. The issues and ideas that motivated La Bertesca FLUX the Nouveaux Realistes also emerged in via del Carmine the Pop Art of the late '50's and early 20121 M ilano POST telefono 87.4J.13 | '60's in Britain and the United States, CARD PARTIAL PROGRAM : G. Brecht (Ladder, Chair, A Play. Lamp) Robert t ser (Pat’ s Birthday) Earle Joseph Byrd (Birds) John Cage (h'33” ) Barney Childs (Fourth String Quartet) P h ilip Corner Lucia Olugot iwski Robert FI 11 too (111 I' trade Mo. I - a 53 kg. poem) Malcolm though Pop Art tended to be an art Goldstein Rad Grcxmu/Rudolph Burckhardt {Shoot the Moor) Al Hanse Dick Higgins (Oanger Musi s tla ls . Two fo r Hemi Bay) Spencer lay) J ill Johnston Brooklyn Joe Jones J Holst (Stories) Terry Jennings (Piece fo r String Quartet) Ray \n which took the real into its scope (Mechanical Music) Alison Knowles (Proposition, Nlvea Cream Piece for Oscei ! Child Art) Arthur Kdpcke (music while you work) Tekenhlsa Kosugl (Micro I, An lea 1) P hilip Kruam (Construction fo r Perfoi y Kuehn Peter Longezo (A Method fo r Reversing the Direction of Rotation of the Planets) George Meciunas (Place for ______, ___ ,0r Everyman, Plano Compositions) Jackson Mac Low emblematically rather than by direct (John Bull Pack; Night Walk; Adams County, Illin o is ; Poert-au-l ice; Sth Light Poem; Solo Readings) Robert Morris (Stories, Construction) Robin Page (Soto fo r Guitar) Ben Patterson (Pond, Paper Pl< Gloves, from Methods t Processes; Three movements fo r seeing - Can you incorporation or manipulation. hear It?) Yvonne Rainer (a dance-drama) 01ter Rot (leh llebe « I.. .) Tomas Schmlt (Zyklus; From'Sanltas') Robert Swlsshelm James Tenney (Collage) Stan Yanderbeek (What. Who, How; Kanklnda) Robert l ;s (Cascade, News, TWo Inches) Jemes Waring (Wind Music #3) -Diane Wakoskl Lieeett W ill lams (U-dtreetIona 1 song o f doubt. Opera) Christ Wolff La Monte Young (Co^osl tlons I960, Plano Pieces fo r David Tudor, Maned) 20 novembre 1973 The college sensibility and incorpora­ Compost tlons 1961, 2 sounds, 566 fo r Henry Flynt, String Trio) . IS news reports, birth t deeth notices, beauty contest, sweaty palms... alle ore 18 © tion of the real are attitudes shared with CONTRIBUTION S'*. LIMITED SEATING. HARDWARE POET’ S PLAYHOUSE e/o BL0ED0W 37 WEST G6TM STREET NEW YORK N.Y. much later correspondence art. It is in I * t K,. the use of the postal system, of artists' $ O' YAM FESTIVAL. ANNOUNCEMENT. 1962. YAM was a multimedia mail and per­ XL ('f N--V £vlA^L| 1 ol*Ji stamps and of the rubber stamp that 4 Nouveaux Realisme made the first ges­ formance art event, which as this announcement indicates brought together a £ variety of artists, ranging from George Brecht, Robert Watts, Alison Knowles, Lk ~ f V t m r s tures toward correspondence art and per invitarvi al discorso 0 Dick Higgins, Ray Johnson who were among the well known figures in mail art e alia presentazione dei toward mail art. Got. i ) n o y circles, to sculptor Robert Morris, dancer Yvonne Rainer and composer La Monte films fluxus di Ben. Several early key works in these media were created by these artists. Young. What did YAM stand for? Nothing more esoteric than MA Y spelled back­ W r 1 4 1 ■ Klein's famous Blue Stamp was a postal wards. Ed Plunkett Collection. BEN VAUTIER. POSTMAN'S CHOICE. 1973 reissue o f a 1966-67post card printed by Fluxus based on a 1965 work by cause celebre and a bureaucratic scan­ Ben. This mail art work involved the issues of choice and chance. Ben simply addressed both sides o f the post card and dal after it was successfully mailed and left it up to the post man as to which of the two addresses would receive it. It was received by Ken Friedman. The Gilbert postmarked in the mid-50's, Arman in­ and Lila Silverman Collection. troduced the rubber stamp into contem­ t would be difficult to pinpoint the make it as simple today to record and to outgrowth of artists' correspondence. porary art with his cachets and ac­ Imoment when artists' correspon­ send a video-tape as to write a letter. History and tradition list Ray Johnson as cumulations of the early and middle dence became correspondence art. By With teletext, interactive cable, the central figure in this phase of corre­ years of'the decade.t Spoerri not only the end of the late 1950's, the three mailgrams, electronic mail, electronic spondence art. To the degree that he created ephemeral mailed works and primary sources of correspondence art computer networking, video, inexpen­ identified, named and himself became projects, small gazettes and cards, but were taking shape. In North America, sive audio, and —looming on the identified with the emerging art form, his involvement with mail art —unlike the New York Correspondence School horizon —a myriad of new communica­ this is true. that of Klein or Arman —continued was in its germinal stages in the work of tions techniques, correspondence art is Working in the tradition of collage and unabated for over a decade and a half artist Ray Johnson and his loose net­ harder to define than ever before. the objet trouve, he was perhaps the spanning all the phases of corre­ work of friends and colleagues. In Eur­ While these facts establish a sense of first to identify the transaction of art spondence art. ope, the group known as the Nouveau perspective, the soul of correspondence works and notes with colleagus as an art Thus, it can truthfully be said that the Realistes were addressing radical new art remains communication. Its twin form itself. Through this stroke of in­ first artists involved in mail art were the issues in contemporary art. On both faces are "correspondence art" and spiration, correspondence art was born. Nouveaux Realistes. However, it was continents, and in Japan, artists who "mail art." Here the distinction is be­ Johnson gave it focus by promulgating Ray Johnson and his circle of friends in were later to work together under the tween reciprocal or interactive com­ the rubric, "The New York Correspon­ the New York Correspondence School YAM FESTIVAL PART 5 rubric of Fluxus were testing and begin­ munication — correspondence — and dence School of Art."* Thus, by permu­ who gave the first phase its character­ ning to stretch the definitions of art. unidirectional or one-way com­ tation, the world was given the new istic sensibility and presence. DELIVERY EVENT munication, mailed out without any re­ medium, correspondence art, and its If the Nouveaux Realistes created by subscription Correspondence art is an elusive art quirement for response. first body of practitioners. The New York paradigms of correspondence art and mailed art as works, it was the New York R. W ATTS cm d o r G . BRECHT form, far more variegated by its very There are special wrinkles in corre­ Correspondence School (NYCS). w ill assemble a work nature than, say, painting. Where a spondence art that involve the mails as However, correspondence art as such Correspondence School that took the and arrange delivery notion from paradigm to practice. Rang­ to y o u painting always involves paint and a medium of transmission for purposes first grew from the work of the European or an addressee of your choice support surface, correspondence art other than mail art. The best example of artists identified as the "Nouveaux ing at times from seventy —five to as can appear as any one of dozens of this would be an exhibition of art from Realistes," a term coined for them by many as three hundred people, the upon receipt of either media transmitted through the mail. Eastern Europe in which the cheapest French critic Pierre Restany. The core NYCS was summoned into being by (A ) $1 2 3 5 0 13 21 34 55 etc. While the vast majority of correspon­ and safest way of sending art to the issue of the "New Realism," a move­ Ray Johnson but, at its height, existed dence art or mail art activities take place United States would be through the ment born in the early '50's, was the around him as many intersecting rela­ in the mail, today's new forms of elec­ mail, though the art works sent would conception of an art made of real ele­ tionships independent of his direct in­ (B) a number of $ equal to the date of the month on which the work is subscribed to multiplied by tronic communication blur the edges of actually be intended as —and only as — ments, that is, materials taken from the volvements. Many distinguished artists the number of food items consumed by the sub­ that forum. In the 1960's, when cor­ photographs, drawings, paintings, or world directly rather than pictorially. The participated in Johnson's whirling scriber on that day. respondence art first began to blossom, artists' books. group includes Arman, Yves Klein, Piero vortex of mailings and events, some of To subscribe, address: most artists found the postal service to Certain forms of art have become Manzoni, Martial Raysse, Raymond whom, such as Richard C, Ed Plunkett, YAM FESTIVAL, P.O. Box 412, Metuchen, N. J. be the most readily available — and least associated with correspondence art and Hains, Daniel Spoerri and Francois or Dick Higgins and other Fluxus artists expensive — medium of exchange. mail art both by virtue of tradition and Dufrene, and —in some senses — became themselves major shapers of Today's micro-computers with the ease with which they are mailed. Christo. As one can see, these artists the ethos and attitudes of correspon­ modern facilities offer anyone com­ These include post cards, artists' books, each use a rather direct slice of life. The dence art. R. WATTS AND G. BRECHT. YAM FESTIVAL DELIVERY EVENT. The puting and communicating power that printed ephemera, rubber stamps, ar­ actual sectioning ranges from the highly tKurt Schwitters had done stamp works as two decades ago were available only to tists' postage stamps, and posters of tenuous or theoretical projects of Man­ early as 1918 and the Russian Futurists had Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection. the largest institutions and corporations, various kinds. zoni and Klein to the embedded and achieved the distinction of creating the first and only a few decades previous The first phase of correspondence art modern art with rubber stamps a few years weren't available to anyone at any price. primarily involved individual expression *The name itself was coined by Ed Plunkett, previous. However, the medium vanished Transistors and miniaturized electronics in reciprocal relationships, a natural then given its broad use by Johnson. until Arman resurrected it in his oeuvre. The NYCS relied on direct interaction loft on Chambers Street. By 1962, for social reform and public housing 2F/ccc CLOUD SCISSORS, $1, between correspondents. As a result, Fluxus was fairly well formed and came out of a movement which was as 2F/cc ICED DICE, Event Procpecxua $3 the works that one might receive in the named. A few individuals from Europe much characterized by these prophetic, early days were highly personal, often and America, such as the Czech artist even socio-political leanings as by such 2F/ccc EXIT 3s ENTRANCE m usic on ta p e , $ highly crafted. Hand —made collages, Milan Knizak, Joseph Beuys the Ger­ typically evanescent projects as George carefully printed photographs, even man artist, Geoff Hendricks or I, came Brechts' laconic events. 3 F -c a PENNANTS from GEORGS 3R3CKT. §39 and u p : ?>50 and up framed paintings were fairly common. into the group slightly later, with At first, the Fluxus artists active in the (bunting, sewn legends, with staff) Odd and lavish objects were not uncom­ members of the initial cast of characters correspondence art world (including SIGNS (oil on canvas, mount od) S2-5 and up,. Sets cf two $4-0. mon. Some participants took pride and coming and going through about 1966. many who did not participate in the available with following legends: even a perverse pleasure in sending to NYCS) were quite content to create AIR, a rro w , s e t o f tw o: BOTii/NEITMER , 7JUTT GRGUIJ3, Qj-JICE, so t one another the most outlandish and private works. These included mail art o f tw o: DAY/ITIGAT, DUST, EARTH MEETING, EDGE KE’KORY, END, EXIT . possibly unmailable objects or series of pieces by individuals, and marvelous projects they could conceive. My fond­ series of publications, post cards, set of two: EACT/EICTION, FOOD, FORGET TOTS, FRONT, LIMIT, est memories are of a series of chairs, stamps and stationery published by LISTEN, LOCATION, MEETING, MIDDLE, MIND GRADE, MINE YOURS, smaller chairs mailed whole, larger George Maciunas for Fluxus artists in­ MONDAY, NO SMOKING, NO VACANCY, O'CLOCK, QUESTION, RAIN TRICK, chairs mailed disassembled to fit within cluding Bob Watts, Robert Filliou, Ben RAY, R EMBER (n o t a v a i l a b l e ) , RSMEMEER T.-.'-.xS, RIVER R'AX, ROOM, postal size limits. The challenge was to Vautier, Daniel Spoerri, and others SILENCE, SMOKE, SOUP, START, surprise signs, set of two: THING/ mail them unwrapped and visible, per­ among us. There was even a Fluxus THOUGHT, TOP, UNIT. suading postal clerks to accept the items Postal Kit prepared in 1966 complete as falling within regulations. This was, with a Fluxpost cancellation mark, per­ 3F-cU SUITCASE or TRUNK packed, ready for traveling, $ 50 and up. of course, a time when postal regula­ mitting an entire, Fluxus-controlled tions were far different and substantially postal exchange to take place. 3 F -cd RELOCATION, s c o r e / p r c s p e c t u s , §0 / , more lax than today. By the late '60's, the public opportuni­ In the '60's, Ray Johnson set the tone ties of correspondence art and mail art EUROPEAN MAIL-ORDER WAREHOUSE. 1964. This publication of the European Flux Shop is a catalogue with a price for the NYCS. The Paper Snake, a book became manifestly visible. It was then list that was meant to be used to order the contents. Available items that would be sent through the mails ranged from on his work, published by Something that the prophetic side of Fluxus "Robert Watts: events in wood box, $3" to "Alison Knowles: canned bean roll $6;” "Fluxus-Machine $5;" "Nam June Else Press, is a good example of the emerged, establishing the second phase Paik: exhibits and compositions $8. " The catalogue illustrated here was sent to Robert Watts. The Gilbert and Lila Silver- abundance and flavor of the time. Direct of mail art. Now, for the first time, the man Collection. and personal interaction were the salient correspondence art — in the previous qualities and greatest pleasures of the sense that the term has been used here NYCS and the era of the '60's. The first — that reached out to the public, em­ GUERILLA ART ACTION GROUP to make his or her own determination. At first Fluxus artists took part in cor­ phase of correspondence art was also bodied not only correspondence art, but ers, book buyers, recipients of the (GAAG) Letter. 1976. GAAG used the That said, I'll write it as I see it. respondence art as private individuals. characterized by a trenchant sense of a larger, and admittedly less private, mail newsletter and the Press' catalogues mails as a means of expressing opinion Some were involved in Nouveau Real- privacy. These were private letters and art. Through this outreach, the extra­ that Higgins first redefined the mail art on political issues both inside and out isme, some in the New York Correspon­ activities, exchanges among friends. An ordinary latent power for international network. This is a significant moment in side the art world. Jon Hendricks Col­ Fluxus was a forum for experimenta­ dence School, some as individual parti­ attitude that only members need apply communication became overt, termed mail art, even though Higgins did not prevailed. Johnson himself issued lection. tion. The commitment to experimenta­ cipants on the growing network. By the entirely view the newsletter as a mail art "The Eternal Network" by Robert Fillou. tion and to research was profound. It end of the 1960's, a number of Fluxus numerous lovely, dense printed collages It was at this time that mail art first format. For the first time, a correspon­ in which he specifically used the names was characteristic that Fluxus par­ people had begun to view mail art as a dence artist consciously used the mails Fluxus has always been a rather created, and began to make the real, its ticipants not only asked "Why?" but medium offering unique potentials and of "members" of the NYCS, occasional­ unlikely movement: sprightly, hard to potential for social change and for con­ as a regular medium of public communi­ "How?" — and then they would gen­ challenges. They saw beyond the basic cation. Even though the newsletter was ly adding or dropping names. These pin down, a bit Zen-like in its reluctance tributing new forms of communication erally go on to ask "Why not?" and issue of art through the mail, and began primarily outbound in its form, there was seemed to point inward to a closed cir­ to be described, it is hardly a movement to the world. "How else?" A fair number of Fluxus' to explore the reaches and media of cor­ always a flavor to it that encouraged re­ cle. This is not to say that it was bad: it's at all. One may rather caii it a rubric, a Having taken counsel by the bad ex­ members came to art from untraditional respondence and mail themselves. sponse and participation, a fact that simply the way it was. In the first phase forum, an elusive philosophy made real ample of self-congratulatory colleagues, of correspondence art, the paradigm backgrounds —Spoerri from ballet, Hig­ The first major step was taken by Dick Higgins' and the Press' voluminous files by the fact that real artists engaged one I've come to feel a bit uncomfortable gins from music and printing, Paik from Higgins when he established Something blossomed, flourished and found most another and the world in real acts under writing about my own work. Whereas I and archives demonstrate. Higgins' re­ music and robotics, Filliou from eco­ Else Press and the Something Else Press spondents and correspondents moved of its major practitioners. In the second the name Fluxus. The edges of Fluxus first began writing on art to explain my nomics, Brecht from natural and bio­ Newsletter. The Press was an innovative into the network and into the art world. phase, correspondence art turned out­ have never been particularly crisp or work, or to explain Fluxus, and there­ logical sciences, and so on. Others, publishing house designed to bring ex­ Staid artists became experimental, and ward to the world. brutal. So it is that Fluxus shares Daniel fore, in a sense, felt free to write about such as Alison Knowles or Wolf Vostell perimental and avant garde work to the experimental artists came into contact It is at this point, during the first phase Spoerri with the Nouveaux Realistes; myself, I prefer now to write about art to were trained as artists, yet they public eye in well designed, handsome, with oth^r experimental artists. Some­ of the development of correspondence Christo has occasionally floated into explain issues. In that I have been called developed a highly experimental notion durable books. It is by now well known thing Else Press, founded as an out­ art —but looking toward the second — Fluxus, though he has about him always on for this article to write about Fluxus, of what art could be. Finally, the ring­ as one of the early sources of much con­ growth of Fluxus, small, perhaps private that it is best to explore the role of Flux- a sense that he can never be part of any and, in particular, Fluxus' relation to mail master of the Fluxus circus, George temporary art. Higgins himself is famed in its original conception, became the ux in the development and dissemina­ particular group with which he may art, I have, in part, been called on to Maciunas, was both pragmatic and ex­ as the essayist who brought the term locus of a vast resonating network of tion of mail art. share interests. Half a dozen of the most write about myself. I beg the reader's perimental. As the chief editor and fre­ "intermedia" into current usage. When correspondents. It is vital to note the de­ Fluxus germinated in the artistic fer­ active and charming participants in the pardon for that which may seem boast­ quent organizer of Fluxus activities, his Higgins wrote his seminal essay on velopment of a network intended as a ment of the late 1950's. Some of the NYCS were very active in Fluxus. At ful. The historical documents are avail­ paradoxical whims, highly refined intermedia in 1966, he sought a format forum through which ideas might be ex­ Fluxus people found each other in John times, even Ray Johnson took part in able, and, with the forthcoming appear­ organizational sensibility and peculiar to make it widely known. The form he changed and through which like minds Cage's and Richard Maxfield's classes at various Fluxus publications and events. ances of Michael Crane's massive study administrative quirks gave Fluxus its chose was that of the newsletter. might come into communication. This The New School. Others met through As elusive and unlikely to proselytize on mail art, a plethora of documents will unique flavor and offered Fluxus artists In his newsletter, he created an inex­ was a public realization of the idea in­ George Maniunas' publications or com­ as Fluxus seemed, it also had a very be accessible to the public. Where the the wide range of philosophical permis­ pensive medium for sharing art and art choate in the New York Correspon­ mittees or the early festivals, and in the public side. Massive festivals, grand reader finds me questionable or dis­ sions and encouragements that came to ideas with thousands of readers. It was dence School, but never fully realized moving feasts of the era, such as the publishing programs, extensive tours of agreeable, therefore, I suggest a first characterize the Fluxus ethos. through his ever-expanding list of read­ due to the highly private, personal con- ongoing series of events at Yoko Ono's performances and concerts, proposals hand look at the material to permit each 20 text that characterized the NYCS. Further, it was through the Some­ ed mailing lists to reach others. The bitions blossomed simultaneously that art in both exhibition and other forms. (I thing Else Press that the projects of wide publication of the lists, right or were to transform correspondence art must add that in many cases, mail art artists such as Robert Filliou, George wrong, changed all that. The reference and mail art from private activity to projects modeled on the paradigm de­ Brecht, Daniel Spoerri and even Ray tools and media that grew from our lists public access. The first projects were veloped in Omaha did not come from Johnson himself first found a broad had an impact on the art world that was the major mail art shows organized by Omaha directly. Rather, the model was public. not foreseen when, in order to gain Marcia Tucker at the Whitney Museum, adapted, say, by an artist from South wer liefert was? Wir liefern Musik, greater control over its own communi­ to which Ray Johnson's personal friends Dakota who invited a friend from Iowa The next Fluxus contribution to cor­ who supplies what? that IS, the genuine water from Dunkerque qui peut livrer quoi? we supply music. cation, Fluxus West began the annual and New York Correspondence School to participate. The Iowan created a mail respondence art and to mail art was the in organic glass bottle, As Spiegle. Co. in Chicago or Neckermann Versand in Frankfurt directory and publications. colleagues were invited, and the 1971 art show that was an inspiration to some exploration and use of the medium of . FLUXUS macht es mtfglich the red earth from Auschwitz In an un-breakable polyethylene Biennal of Paris, curated by French art artists from Staten Island. The Staten mail as a communication system. These tube, or dirty nails of The existence of such substantial projects came in three parts. The first John Cage cut in numbers of people, many — if not most historian and critic Jean-Marc Poinsot, Island show influenced some people in 1963, or involving the several dozen figures who Connecticut, and so on. Further, several had to do with communication, the sec­ Cortisone bottle of — interested in communicating with one ond with exhibition and the third with G. Maciunas, or another and experimentally inclined (at were at that time seen as the leading shows developed at the same time as arm-pit hair of a artists in the field. Omaha Flow Systems, also using our publishing. Chicagoan negro prostitute least from time to time) suggested new When Fluxus began, the art world etc...... ways of exhibiting art and of preparing At first, the mails were used to create lists and research, had enormous direct exhibitions or used as a forum for private influence. These included, most not­ was a smaller place, experimental artists exhibitions. The first such notions were n „ . * m * * v m 3 K artists whose interactions were ex­ ably, Davi det Hompson's Cyclopedia, comprised a far less significant faction " , 0 0 8 uouatttosans rudimentary. It was tough to bring large hibited. The leap to a public process and the several exhibitions organized by of the art world. It was difficult to find works of art out of Eastern Europe in seems to have emerged from an idea Terry Reid and by the Canadian mail art out who was who or to reach others crates, but a big drawing or a suite of that I had after my experience with the geniuses at Image Bank. who might share given interests. In the photos could easily be put in an enve­ lists. I reasoned that the lists themselves The publishing paradigm developed early days of Fluxus, George Maciunas lope to be mailed out as a letter, albeit a might be used as the body of artists in­ developed through Fluxus have had regularly published the Fluxus mailing thick letter. So it was that at first, even vited to exhibit. The notion went substantial impact on mail art. At first, lists and membership lists. This permit­ as we were using the mail to create ex­ through stages. When George Neubert the notion of newsletters and periodicals ted ready access to people about whom perimental works as individual artists, was treated playfully, as, for example, one might wish to know more. It also we were also using the mail to transmit then curator of the Oakland Museum, offered me a one-man exhibition for Nam June Paik's Review of the Univer­ suggested to some of us the notion of fairly ordinary or traditional art works for 1972, I chose a one-year project inviting sity of Avant Garde Hinduism, or Daniel contacting those whom one didn't exhibition. Two or three important exhi- people to correspond with me through Spoerri's magazine from his Greek know; to find out who they were, what island retreat at Simi. Dick Higgins, as they were doing, and what made them the museum. This invitation started with already discussed, took a further step interesting enough to incorporate the the use of the lists and grew to become Something Else Press News­ Fluxus list. public. A second project was mounted with the at the University of Washington letter. George Maciunas created the Starting in 1966, Fluxus West began museum, The Henry Art Gallery, in V-Tre newspaper, allied conceptually to publish annual compilations of the Seattle. At the Henry Gallery, we ad­ and physically to the production of Fluxus lists, adding to those lists in­ dressed the public directly to create Fluxus multiples and concerts. Where teresting artists whom we were able to enormous regional group participants, the Fluxus publishing ethos came direct­ locate and identify. By 1972, the lists had ■|ri6 e(sfjSd'1 ^V i’StX sa>(Biu XX PUB incidentally involving participants from ly into the realm of contemporary mail grown to a point where we published Aoq e sa>feuj '* 6i?l uiosoq *4 * 'q6jq S! }sajaA3 *. ^ A* am XqM 'p|oo afar through extended media and wide art was in Amazing Facts Magazine and over 1400 names and addresses, to­ S| ao; aq} pue ' uueM sj uns aq} AqM & ujejdxa }ouueo inq 'A>|- -SM ojieqosj. ja} 3d ^ ueq} S! public coverage. The final apotheosis with the birth of New York Correspon­ gether, where possible, with phone ja ll!W uua|Q AqM sdeqjad uje|dxa # k ueo | asneoaq was a project entitled Omaha Flow Sys­ dence School Weekly Breeder. numbers. The 1972 list was published in sajjas p |jo n \ neqasBq,, eifl se 6uj}saja}uj se }0U inq 6u!}S9J9}Ui Aj3a tems, mounted at the Joslyn Art Amazing Facts Magazine was a cooperation with Canada's Image Bank. sj ojsniu- S n X flld asneo- -aq 1 p |jo a a |eoj6o| % } s o u j a m si i ! asneoaq Museum in the Spring of 1973.' crudely assembled publication created It was released in hundreds of copies, P |j o m pjnsqe V * }sow aq} sj p | j o m |eoisAqd asneoaq For Omaha Flow Systems, we de­ at Fluxus West in 1968. We gathered in distributed gratis to artists, arts 'ojsniu pjnsqe j a y e \ u o j i b } s ptau aq} sj ojsnw |eoisAqd jjuiq} i asneoaq 'sjeaA ^ ueq} ajoiu jo} 6umunuoo oisnui vised a number of projects and sub- our mail, put it into a folio with a cover, organizations and publishers around the e asodinoo pue pjooaj sjq} wiauaj ||;m | -sjeaA AjaAa pawauaj si pjooat projects, using all of the administrative and sent it out. The idea lasted one world. The list became the core of the XtaAa q6noq}|e 'sjeaA OS ua>|0jq }ou sj (,,6uia(l s^au6e/v\ uj step ^ ) oisnrn jo pjooaj }sa6uo| aqi and analytic tools available to us. The issue, but established a notion of gather­ first File Magazine artists' directory, was show, while serving to model a wide ing as the editorial principle for a used to develop Flash Art's Art Diary, variety of ideas and projects, became magazine. Independently in Germany, and, in expanded and better researched best known as the largest mail art pro­ Thomas Niggl was creating Omnibus versions, served such staid reference ject to date — or since. Thousands of in­ News, the first truly gathered or accu­ tomes as Who's Who in American Art NAM JUNE PA/K. THE MONTHLY REVIEW OF THE UNIVERSITY FOR AVANT- vitations were mailed, and mass media, mulated magazine in multiple editions. GARDE HINDUISM 1963. Jon Hendricks collection. and Who's Who in America. The project local, regional, national and interna­ These two preceded the better known was an act of social responsibility: ac­ tional, were used. Ace Space Company anthologies gath­ cess to a fuller universe of information in Over 20,000 items were received at ered and published by Dana Atchley, a professional environment marked by the Joslyn, with many tens of thou­ and, finally, the Assembling anthologies restricted communication. The restric­ sands additional viewer contacts, in- developed by Henry Korn, Richard Kos- tion of communication is a tool and a MILAN KNIZAK. AKTUAL. Letter, put/out-put transactions, systems that telanetz and Mike Metz, today the best weapon. It gives power to those who 1969. This mailing consisted of a single we could not trace, satellite exhibitions known and most widely disseminated of possess the media of communication sheet, folded into a rectangle to form an at other institutions across the region such periodicals. and it works against those who lack rich envelope. It opened up to reveal a col­ and around the world. The recent histor­ More quirky and playful, the New success. It seemed to us that certain ored drawing. The lettering of the ies of mail art cite the Omaha Flow Sys­ York Correspondence School Weekly individuals at the center of art world envelope and FLUXPOST stamp are tems project as the basic model for all Breeder was a jest intended to tickle the media — critics, curators, dealers — representative of Knizak's work in the mail art exhibitions since 1973, and —in sense of youthful fancy one had in could reach anyone, while the rest of us late 1960s. The Gilbert and Lila Silver- its sub-projects — as the model for sev­ school in receiving the My Weekly had a hard time finding jealously guard- man collection. eral uses of mail art and correspondence Reader periodicals, and to create a 22 u

KEN FRIEDMAN. FLUXPOST COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE. 1974. This sheet of stamps celebrates the 10th anniversary of FLUX POST stamps. Ken Friedman Collection.

regular, weekly contact with other art­ the "Dadazine," a format adopted not of that primary group of individual parti­ ists. The NYCSWB was published only by mail artists, but widely influential cipants on a small network: at the end, through about 10 or eleven issues at for artists books and for publishing in the trenchant experimentation that Fluxus West, then passed to Stu Horn, a fields as diverse as punk rock and art Fluxus artists pursued, the paradigms Philadelphia artist. Horn, already well criticism. they developed and proved redefined known as The Northwest Mounted In surveying Fluxus' influence on mail the medium, taking it into its third phase Valise, a longtime friend of Ray Johnson art and correspondence art, the results and leading to its present state. Mail art and a talented graphic poet, produced a of a survey reported to be in Mike and correspondence art have without number of issues for the second volume Crane's forthcoming book is very reveal­ doubt grown into a new phase, a fourth and then passed the periodical to Bill ing. Fluxus as a group emerges as the phase made possible only by a widening Gaglione and Tim Mancusi in San Fran­ largest single influence, followed by Ray public and a generation of new and vital cisco. Gaglione and Mancusi took the Johnson (2), then by Fluxus artists Ken artists. Fluxus' role in the history of the idea on, and through their network of Friedman (3), Dick Higgins (4), George medium was to create the bridge be­ friends and correspondents, trans­ Brecht (6 ), Robert Filliou (8 ), and Ben tween private and public states, and to formed the NYCSWB into an odd—and Vautier (9). develop the new media that today's oddly influential — periodical. Starting Fluxus approached mail art as an op­ artists employ in exploring today's with its modest, single-sheet beginnings portunity to experimentation, to com­ issues. in 1971, the NYCSWB grew to spark the munication and to interaction. At the phenomenon in publishing known as beginning, the Fluxus artists were part 24