John Held, Jr. Papers Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Key to the Collection: Correspondence 1976-1995 Part III POLAND Bzdok, Henryk (Katowice) Rubber stamps were impossible to obtain through commercial means under the totalitarian regime in Poland. Instead, Polish and other Eastern European artists would carve their own. None were as elegant as those of Henryk Bzdok. In this mailing, he includes a number of his rubber stamped postcards, showing a variety of his works. Bzdok is noted for a number of his rubber stamp slogans, including "Communication as art," and  "Art in Contact." 1 letter 1984 Petasz, Pawel (Elblag) One of the most important Eastern European Mail Artists, Petasz was pictured on the cover of the impressive and informative 318 page catalog, Mail Art: Eastern Europe in International Network (Staatliches Museum Schwerin, 1998). There is a good reason for this. Petasz is a major artist, irrespective of the medium used. From eraser carving to computers, both of which are depicted in this file, Petasz displays a unique feel for the medium. He organized many shows and projects in Poland, and was an early performance artist behind the Iron Curtain. One notable performance was based on his Mail Art activities, in which he asked his correspondents to send him pieces of cloth that were then made into a suit. Petasz then walked the streets of Elblag wearing it and had the action documented. In the darkest days of political repression, Petasz sewed his correspondence shut to escape censorship. Several of these letters are included in the file. 9 letters 1986-1991 Rypson, Piotr (Warsaw) A practitioner and scholar of Mail Art and Visual Poetry, Rypson curated many Mail Art shows behind the Iron Curtain He published the catalog, Mail Art: Czyli Szuka Poczty, in connection with an exhibition at the Akademia Ruchu, Warsaw, in 1985. The catalog had a number of essays by a variety of international Mail Artists. 2 letters 1989 PORTUGAL Figueiredo, César (Porto) Interested in Visual Poetry, Photocopy Art and Mail Art, Figueiredo has maintained a steady presence in the Portuguese alternative art scene for many years. He is associated with the art group Art & Tal. 2 letters 1989 Oliveira, José (Lisbon) Well-known for his work with artists' books, Oliveira asks many questions in this letter about sources for new material.  His correspondence also mentions a Portuguese Mail Art Congress with the participation of H. R. Fricker (see file Switzerland), and a Mail Art show in support of East Timor human rights. 1 letter 1992 ROMANIA Király, Iosif (Timisoara) A photographer and Mail Artist, Király was a correspondent of mine spanning the years between repression and independence in Romania. Receiving a letter from Romania before their revolution asking for assistance in perforating stampsheets was an amazing occurrence for me. Little did I know, before receiving a letter from a Finnish music critic that had just visited Iosif, how much my correspondence with him had meant. ""Iosif wanted me to explain what it is like for them over there, so you can understand how much it means for Iosif and other mail art people in Romania to have some contacts outside. But the secret police confiscate everything they don't understand, even if it isn't clearly against the regime. So it does not matter if it is not political, if they're not sure, they stop it." 9 letters 1 postcard 1987-1990 RUSSIA (see UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS) SPAIN Ibirico (Madrid) In large part responsible for the current (2000) wave of activity in Spanish Mail Art, Ibirico edited, Asociacion Mail-Artistas Espanńoles, a newsletter listing various Mail Art activities and exhibition opportunities around the world. In this letter, Ibirico, a frequent visitor to Cuba, offers advice in advance of my travel there for events in connection with the exhibition, Habana '95: Exhibición Internacional de Arte Correo (see file Mena, Cuba). 1 letter 1994 Sousa, Pere (Barcelona) During the Franco years in Spain, Mail Art was a virtual blank slate. An exception to this was Pere Sousa. An organizer of exhibitions (American Gothic, Kurt Schwitters, etc.,), zine publisher (Merz Mail), artist postage stamp practitioner and scholar, Sousa paved the way for a new active generation of Spanish Mail Artists. 4 letters 1993-1994 SWITZERLAND Aguis, Juan (Geneva) A book dealer and friend of the late artist Ulises Carrión (see file Holland), Aguis received the Other Books and So Archive after the artists death. He has since issued a number of sale catalogs on various themes, including Visual Poetry, artist publications and Rubber Stamp Art. He attended the 1994 exhibition, L'Art du Tampon, at the Musée de la Poste, Paris, where we met. Aguis, along with San Francisco book dealer, Steven Leiber (see file United States), are the first dealers to specialize in the sale of historic Mail Art materials. 2 letters 1994-1995 Fricker, Hans Ruedi (Trogen) One of the most important and talented Mail Artists in the world, H. R. Fricker was the co-organizer of the 1986 Worldwide Decentralized Mail Art Congresses (with Günter Ruch, see file Switzerland), and the 1992 Decentralized World-Wide Networker Congresses (with Peter Kaufmann, see file Switzerland). He is a proponent of "Tourism," the concept of correspondents meeting in real time and space. He is the author of I am a Networker (Sometimes): Mail-Art und Tourism (Verlag Vexner, 1989), and has organized many Mail Art projects and exhibitions, including a 1994 Mail Art show at the Swiss PTT Museum (see file Switzerland). Fricker's envelopes are unique in Mail Art, and have been the subject of exhibitions. His artist postage stamps are also classic Mail Art works. Fricker sold his Mail Art archive to the Swiss PTT Museum (see file Switzerland), and the correspondence discusses this sale. 15 letters 3 postcards 1987-1995 Kaufmann, Peter (Ebmatingen) Co-organizer of the 1992 Decentralized World-Wide Networker Congresses (with H. R. Fricker, see file Switzerland), Kaufmann sends a chronology of Congress Sessions planned for such places as Paris, London, Stockholm, Milan and San Francisco. At the conclusion of the Congress Year, Kaufmann issued a book listing all the events occurring during the period. 1 letter 1991 Kunstmuseum (St. Gallen) Host of the 1989 exhibition, I am a Networker (Sometimes), by H. R. Fricker, the correspondence discusses loans I made to the Museum for the exhibition. Some forty envelopes sent to me by Fricker over the years were displayed. An excellent catalog accompanied the exhibition. 4 letters 1 postcard 1989 PTT Museum (Bern) Correspondence relating to the Swiss National PTT Museum staging a Mail Art exhibition in 1993-1994. The Museum also hosted a FAX exhibition in connection with the show, and produced a special stampsheet. 2 letters 1 loose letter 1992-1993 Ruch, Günther (Genéva-Peney) With an interest in Fluxus and a familiarity with Mail Art gained through association with John Armleder (Ecart gallery and publications) in the seventies, Rüch published the Mail Art magazine, Clinch, and was a co-organizer with H. R. Fricker of the 1986 Decentralized World-Wide Mail Art Congresses. At the end of the Congress Year, Rüch published the results of the meetings between Mail Artists, which numbered some 80 sessions. 12 letters 1 postcard 1986-1990 SWEDEN Meyer, Peter (Stockholm) "I have been active since 1979 and have corresponded with over 2000 artists in 40 countries. I have tried to answer every letter, and have participated in hundreds of exhibitions,. My main interest has however been AUDIO and VIDEO, since I work professionally as a producer & director at the national Swedish radio and tv." So writes Meyer in an overview of his Mail Art Activities. His Night Exercises radio and television programs have been widely broadcast and exhibited (including Franklin Furnace, New York). Meyer has also traveled widely to interview participants in Mail Art and Fluxus. In 1994, in collaboration with Swedish Mail Artist Leif Eriksson, Meyer concluded a ten year project in the organization of the exhibition, Mailed Art in Uppsala. An excellent catalog resulted from the exhibition, featuring special portraits on Ray Johnson (see file United States), Vittore Baroni (see file Italy), Guy Bleus (see file Belgium), Edgardo Vigo (see file Argentina), Carlo Pittore (see file United States), Robin Crozier (see file England), Cavellini (see file Italy), Anna Banana, Lon Spiegelman (see file United States), Klaus Groh (see file Germany-West), Ulisses Carrión (see file Holland), Ruggero Maggi (see file Italy), Ryosuke Cohen (see file Japan), Robert Rehfeldt (see file Germany-East), Henning Mittendorf (see file Germany-West), David Zack (see file Mexico), Chuck Welch (see file United States), Al Ackerman (see file United States), Guillermo Deisler (see files Bulgaria and Germany-East), and Rod Summers (see file Holland). 9 letters 1984-1994 TURKEY Selvin Art Gallery (Ankara) Form letter for the Mail Art Project 10th Contemporary Art Ankara-Türkiye. 1 letter 1994 UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS Kruusamae, Ilmar (Tartu, Estonia) One of my most consistent correspondents from the former Soviet Union, Kruusamae is a painter, who I was able to meet in September of 1990. I traveled with my then wife, Paula Barber, to  Estonia, and with Kuuusamae to Leningrad. We billed this trip as the International Mail Art Symposium in the U. S. S. R. As a result of this trip, I wrote the travel diary, Tartu Shadows. Many of Kruusamae's letters speak of the difficulty in sending and receiving mail in Estonia, as all mail went through Moscow, and were sometimes opened before reaching him. Despite the difficulties in communicating, my correspondence with Kruusamae had a profound impact on me, making it possible to reach into the heart of the "beast," and finding that we had many similar interests. My trip to meet Kruusamae was equally moving, for the both of us. He wrote afterwards, "The real outcome will be seen after years. You were the first American for my children and for the children in that kinder-garden, in the art school and in the library with who they met for the first time in their life. And as I noticed from aside, they were emotionally shaken. Being hobbled for years, and through them their children, they saw in a sudden that one can express him(her)self in this way too, and that one can make art in this way that performances and mail-art are."  12 letters 1 postcard 1987-1993 Nekrasiaus, Jonas (Pakruojis, Lithuania) Organizer of the first Mail Art exhibition in Lithuania (Windmills, 1989), Nekrasiaus went on to organize other shows including Ex Libris, The Bridge, Bells, and Lithuania Independence. In 1990, he organized a Mail Art Congress Pokruojis with West German Mail Artist Peter Küstermann (see file Germany-West). 5 letters 1 postcard 1989-1991 Segay, Serge and Nikonova, Rea (Eysk, Russia) Segay and Nikonova became involved in Mail Art through their participation in a 1985, Experimental Art, exhibition at the Young Artist's Club in Budapest, Hungary. The following year, they began corresponding with Western artists, whose addresses they obtained from the list of participants included in the catalog. The pair were part of the Soviet Transfuturist group, drawing inspiration from the Russian Futurists active in the early part of the century. These Futurists, or Zaum artists, were particularly interested in Visual Poetry, created artists' books, and were the first artists anywhere to use rubber stamps in their artworks. Segay staged many exhibitions relating to Mail Art at the Eysk Historical Museum, where he was employed as a curator. This included the first Mail Art exhibition in the U, S. S. R. in 1988, and a show of my artist postage stamps, Alternative Philately, in 1990. Segay also wrote the first essay on Mail Art in the Soviet Union, "Where the Secret is Hidden," appearing in the prestigious magazine, Iskusstvo, published by the Soviet Ministry of Culture, in October 1989. Segay and Nikonova's correspondence are graphic marvels, combining collage, eraser carvings, crayon stenciling and artist postage stamps (many of which I perforated for them). The file contains biographical information compiled by the artists at my request. 21 letters 1987-1991 Shashkin, Eugene (St. Petersburg, Russia) I met Shashkin while visiting Leningrad in 1990. One year later, Shashkin was writing from St. Petersburg, with Leningrad just a memory. While this change occurred, Mark and Mel Corrato (see file United States), were visiting Shashkin, and others of the Russian Raft art group, in connection with their co-organization of the Mail Art show, Detective. Shashkin, a police officer and photographer, was very interested in working with children. His 1991 envelope bears the inscription, "long live to Mail Art-not to Communists." 2 letters 1991-1993 Stepanov, Andrew (Gorky, Russia) Fan mail from Russia? "In a Soviet magazine 'Art' we have read about mail-art movement and your participation in it. My 7-year old daughter drew a sketch of a postage stamp. We would be glad if you like it, especially my daughter would be glad." My reply to the family brought this reply: "Polina was very proud of her 'stamp and showed it to her classmates...Though I'm a little bit skeptical about universal culture that could be created through the mail, I suppose that the more the people know about another people the better..." 2 letters 1990 Yudin, Oleg and Olga (Leningrad, Russia) My hosts while visiting Leningrad in 1990, Yudin is a cartoonist, his wife a maker of nesting dolls. They co-organized a Mail Art show, Detective, the following year with Mark and Mel Corrato (see file United States). Olga also went to Japan to work with Shozo Shimamoto (see file Japan). Together with Eugene Shaskin (see file U. S. S. R.). the Yudins were members of the Raft art group. 1 letter 1991 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Ackerman, Al [Will Greathouse] (San Antonio, Texas) Beginning my introductory essay to Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography,  I noted that the placing of the text fell, "somewhere between the Foreword of Guy Bleus and the 'suppressed" Big Introduction of Al Ackerman, which has been banished to the Appendix. On the one hand you have the honed insight of the European intellectual, and on the other, the bad boy of the family, who, despite his eccentricities, refuses to stay locked in a closet, and shouldn't be locked in the closet, because he is in truth, the soul of the family." Beginning his Mail Art activities after reading Thomas Albright's two-part article in Rolling Stone magazine (April 13th and 27th, 1972), Ackerman went on to become a steady, if somewhat disturbing, presence in the Mail Art community. "Well, averaging 2-10 MA pieces a day, every day, for 15 years, brings this sort of amnesia. Not being able to remember approx. 95% of what I've sent out is probably my mind's way of protecting me. That's why I like the dispersal aspect of MA; it would be truly gruesome I think if I'd saved copies of everything - like having all my old sins hanging around to haunt me. You wouldn't want to see me haunted, now, would you? No, of course you would. P. S. I just figured out that, as of yesterday, I have now probably made and mailed over 7,000 one-of-a-kind envelopes, most just as unsightly as the one I'm sending you here....pretty grisly thought, ah?" (December 11, 1987). A member of Texas' illustrious Hogg Family ("James was one of the state's less crooked governors and his daughter Ima tossed bones to various charitable organizations with snakelike abandon" (January 9, 1985), Ackerman resided in San Antonio, until moving to Baltimore in 1991. We met several times in Texas, including his presentation of the Keynote Address at the Southwest Decentralized Mail Art Congress, I organized at the Dallas Public Library in 1986 (the text of which appears in Blaster: The Blaster Al Ackerman Omnibus [Feh! Press, 1994]). I always looked forward to receiving Ackerman's letters, as they exuded a universe created in a test tube of a singular genius. They are not without their penetrating insights. "But if I were being perfectly truthful I'd have to say that mail-art, or what I identify as mail-art, has been on the decline for about 10-12 years now, since around the time that things like Umbrella started appearing and giving the illusion that a subscription was all that was needed and you could be a mail-artist, too. That's when m/a started moving in the direction of hobbyist concerns, losing its intensity or focus, or dynamic, or whatever it had from approx. '72-'78 (which are the dates I'm actually familiar with: it was cooking back in the 60's, too, from what I've been told). Actually I'm just using Umbrella as the handiest, most obvious referent. There were lots of factors, clearly. The general drift of life in America-things becoming more conservative, less experimental, rising costs, lack of new ideas, the death of the inner-cities, you name it and m/a reflected it: well, why not? m/a has always served as a micro to the macro" (August 30, 1990). 35 letters 4 postcards 1986-1993 Altshul, Darlene [AKA Tarzana Savannah, Femailist] (Tarzana, California) An active Mail Artist, whose correspondence circle includes Al Ackerman (see file United States), Johnny Tostado (see file United States), Michael Voodoo and others, Altshul owns a print shop in Southern California, often putting her equipment to the service of Mail Art. On file are six of her envelope works, using a variety of media, including artist postage stamps, rubber stamps, watercolor and stickers. 6 envelopes 1991-1992 And, Miekal (Madison, Wisconsin) Movers and shakers in the Madison alternative art scene, And and wife Liz Was (see file United States), sponsored such projects as the Avant-Garde Museum of Temporary Art (a yard-art work begun in 1981), Festivals of the Swamps, as well as editors of Anti-Isolation, a zine, and publishers of Xerox Sutra Editions, a collection of small press books and tapes. Their move to West Lima, Wisconsin, in the early nineties, lead to more alternative activities, including the 1992 Dreamtime Village Mail Art Congress, which I attended along with Ashley Parker Owens (see file United States), Stephen Perkins (see file United States), Peter Lamborn Wilson, Malok and Lloyd Dunn (see file United States). 3 letters 2 loose notes 1985-1987 Andre, Carl (New York, New York) One of the few established mainstream artists to stay active in Mail Art during the eighties, Andre and I met at Richland College, Texas, when I was organizing the exhibition, Mail Art About Mail Art, and Andre was an artist-in-resident. "Following the adage that art is what an artist says is art, I do not classify any of my mailings as art. I just like to play post office," he writes. One of the postcards sent, satirizes the controversy over his sculpture at the Tate Gallery. A supporter of several of my projects over the years, Andre wrote in regard to my, International Artist Cooperation: Mail Art Shows, 1970-1985, "I don't know of any mainstream art scholar in New York who could have produced your catalogue." 1 letter 2 postcards 1985-1989 Art Com (San Francisco, California) One of the first alternative spaces in the country to embrace Mail Art, Art Com/La Mamelle, staged one of the first major rubber stamp exhibitions in 1976. Under the leadership of Carl Loeffler, Nancy Frank and Darlene Tong (see file United States), Art Com continued to exert a strong influence on West Coast performance, sound, video and technological art. In 1984, Art Com's publishing arm, Contemporary Arts Press, published Mick Crane (see file United States) and Nancy Stofflet's, Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity, hosting a publication party for the book during Inter Dada 1984 (see file United States). The file includes correspondence between Loeffler and myself concerning a show of Art Com posters and publications at Modern Realism in 1985. 7 letters 1984-1991 Barbot, Gerard [Bobart] (Brooklyn, New York) The son of Fernand and Claudine Barbot, both active in Mail Art, Gerard and was a participant in the 1988 Hiroshima Shadow Project performances in Japan. His correspondence is often composed of recycled Mail Art from his correspondents. 2 letters 1988 Basinski, Michael (Buffalo, New York) A librarian at The Poetry/Rare Books Collection, University Libraries, University of Buffalo (SUNY), Basinski has taken an active interest in obtaining Mail Art publications for the Collection. 5 letters 1991 Beilman, Patrick [Cowtown Art] (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) One of the most active artist stamp artists in the late seventies and early eighties, Beilman had one of the first shows at Modern Realism in 1982. Several of his artist postage stamps are affixed to the envelopes and postcards in the file. 3 letters 7 postcards 1981-1992 Bennett, John [Luna Bisonte Prods] (Columbus, Ohio) Probably the most widely published poet in the world, Bennett maintains an extensive network of correspondents, publishing a great many of them in his Lost and Found Times magazine. Many of his poems are formed by his unique handwriting. Bennett also uses rubber stamps as poetry. 3 letters 3 postcards 1 loose note 1983-1989 Black, Bob (Albany, New York) The center of many controversies in the alternative art and publishing worlds, Black is the author of Beneath the Underground (Feral Press, 1994). The letter, one of the nastiest I've ever received, is in response to a review I wrote about the book in Bibliozine #27. The shocking thing is that overall, it was a very positive review. Not so his response. " Your problem with me is that, while I am (averaging out the ups and downs in expertise) about on a par with you in familiarity with the 'material,' you are a boosterist, I am not. As you aren't a participant, only an observer, your credentials rest entirely on the services you render to the marginals milieu (or milieux), not on what you accomplish there. My internal criticism enlarges me but diminishes baseball-card collectors like you." Black then goes on the skewer Mike Gunderloy (see file United States) and Stewart Home (see file England). 1 letter 1995 Bloch, Julie Hagan ( Hurleyville, New York) Starting our correspondence while she was residing in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bloch has been one of my most consistent correspondents since the mid-eighties. Bloch is a master eraser carver, and has designed a number of rubber stamps for me over the years, including the carving gracing the cover of my reference work, Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography. Many of her eraser carvings are impressed on her envelopes and letters. 10 letters 1987-1992 Bloch, Mark [Pan] (New York, New York) I've had more ups and downs with Mark Bloch then a roller coaster ride. Friend and critic, Bloch edited Panpost, a Mail Art zine, and was a primary chronicler of Ray Johnson (see file United States). Bloch thrives in the underground and fights the rise of Mail Art respectability. This file can be read to great effect in enumerating the differences between Mail Artists, in what appears at times a seamless community. "John I truly do hate the art world and its pretenses. Mail art, without a doubt, has potential to be something more than what is now and now in fact something much greater than the art world. However, I fear that mail art will be absorbed by the art world as you mentioned in your article in FF (Factsheet Five). I do not want to see this happen. I do not necessarily want to see mail art lectured on at the Franklin Furnace (see file United States) in front of a crowd of art bureaucrats, (but let me say that if you ARE a bureaucrat, you are certainly one of the most creative among them.) Still, I fear the day that mail art will be swallowed up by the system. I prefer that it remain outside. Factsheet Five is proof that the system cannot completely swallow mail art because it has grown far beyond that. We don't need a nod from Clive Phillpot (see file United States) or anyone else to continue. If mail art is bigger now it is not because of us - it is because it is an idea whose time has come. Cassette networking and zines and the revival of the underground politically necessitates that a network outside of a consumer society exists. You can call it mail art, though I think mail art has outgrown its usefulness as a genre. Perhaps the peak years WERE in the late sixties John, and what we have been involved in throughout the 80's were the formative years of something better - not a bunch of backslappers (or Art World backstabbers) but an international community of people who are more dedicated to truth than to the petty pursuits of fame or collectable art or money" (April 20, 1990). Bloch was one of the first Mail Artists to suspend his postal activities in lieu of the emerging electronic networks. 17 letters 7 postcards 2 loose notes 1983-1990 blurr, buZ [Russell Butler] (Gurdon, Arkansas) One of my best friends in the Mail Art network, blurr (Russell Butler) is active in both the artist postage stamp genre and in railroad graffiti. He became active in Mail Art after reading the 1972 Rolling Stone articles. As a railroad worker, he is prominent in the graffiti field, with many admirers throughout the country. He describes his activities in graffiti as similar to his involvement in Mail Art, in that they both involve alternative means of distribution and communication. blurr's artist postage stamp work is created in unique fashion. The Caustic Jelly Post series is produced by first taking a Polaroid photograph and stenciling the negative image, which is usually discarded. These stencils are then photocopied, reduced, and composed into stamp sheets, which are then perforated. Many of the Caustic Jelly Post stamps are of Mail Artists blurr has met in his travels, from Inter Dada 80 (see file United States) onward. As a newcomer to Mail Art, blurr (AKA Hoo Hoo Archives) was signaled out by Ken Friedman (see file United States) for his participation in the "later-day junk-mail movement." blurr's  growth as an artist is a testament to both his determination and ability. His typed letters on computer cards trace our long standing friendship, cemented when I was living in Dallas, and blurr was a frequent visitor to the Mail Art events I organized. Although blurr's stamp sheets have been removed, most of the envelopes are affixed with examples of his work.       90 letters 3 postcards 3 loose notes                                                                                                   Continue to Part IV