LatinAmericaDiary

Latin America Travel Diary (1991)

John Held, Jr.

Monday, December 2, 1991:

Errands to get ready for trip. Brother David back to New York. Bill Gaglione calls. Leave for the airport at 3:30PM with Paula. Take a 5:15 Pan American flight to Miami. Read Karl Young's Shadow Project catalog, which I received in the mail just before leaving. Mail also from Fricker (Networking Congress materials) and Lon Spiegelman. Get into Miami airport at 9:00PM. Change planes for Rio de Janiero. Depart from Miami at 10:00PM.

Tuesday, December 3, 1991:

Arrive in Rio de Janiero at 9:00AM. The 10:30AM flight is cancelled and the plane finally departs at 4:30PM. Arrive in Buenos Aires at 7:30 PM. As it turns out, this is the last day that Pan American Airlines has schedualed flights. After 64 years in business, they cancel all remaining operations. If I had decided to fly one day later, I wouldn't have been able to take the trip. Clemente Padin had written to me that Hilda Paz, an Argentine Mail Artist, would meet me at the airport. But I wasn't surprised that having arrived six hours late there was nobody at the gate to meet me. Pan Am provides a bus to take me from the international airport to the local airport, which is across the city. I take a plane to Montevideo at 9:20PM, and arrive an hour later. I call Clemente to let him know I've arrived and he asks me to take a bus to the Hotel Cervantes in the center of the city. The bus driver will not take my American money, but a woman pays for me and refuses to take anything for it. I arrive at the hotel, which is well known for the artists and writers who have stayed there (including Jorge Luis Borges). Take a shower and go to bed at midnight.

Wednesday, December 4, 1991:

Clemente Padin comes to the Hotel Cervantes at 10:00AM. I am pleased to find out that his English allows us to communicate without difficulty. I give him a copy of The Paper Snake, by Ray Johnson, as a gift. We go to the office of Jorge Caraballo, where I am introduced to other half of the duo that was imprisoned for their Mail Art activities in 1977 Unfortunatly, I don't know Spanish, and Jorge knows no English so our conversation was limited. Clemente and I go to a cafe for coffee and get acquainted. Then we go to the recreation center where he works as a physical therapist with children suffering from Down's Syndrome. We then take a bus to Clemente's home which is some eight miles from the center of the city (a city that reminds me very much of Lisbon, Portugal). I meet his wife, and look over his Mail Art archive (much of the earlier works were confiscated by the police at the time of his arrest). He gives me a copy of the pamphlet he has just had published, Caraballo-Padin: Solidaridad Uruguay, Which documents his arrest and the attempts of the Mail Art community to gain his release. Clemente is very interested in video, and he does a video interview with me about the Shadow Project. After lunch, I interview him about his work. He was an active visual poet in the sixties, and edited several international poetry magazines. This brought him into contact with the Mail Art community, and he organized the first mail Art exhibition in South America in 1974. In 1977, he was sentenced to four years in prison for satirizing the military through his Mail Art, but was released after two years after a letter writing campaign by Mail Artists obtained his release. He was in a total of four prisons and was tortured. Caraballo was simultaneously arrested as a collaborator. There is much more to be said of this extraordinary man, which I will relate elsewhere. Needless to say, it is his committment to art and to life that have drawn me to him, and I am further impressed after having met him by his energetic drive for both of these aspects, which he manifests in a variety of daily activities. We leave his house and go to a store where I purchase rubber stamps of Uragayain national figures. We then go to Amnestry International Uruguay and meet Reuban Tani and Nicholas Guigoa. Reuban is a professor at the University, who has been active in Mail Art for several years. Nicholas works at Amnesty International. We go to the old part of the city, at the southern tip of Montevideo, where we pass the time at a cafe drinking beer and eating parrillo (assorted grilled meat appetizers). We walk back to the Hotel Cervantes where I take a nap. I go out in the evening to eat and then come back to the hotel to read Corrosive Signs: Essays on Experiental Poetry, a book about Latin American Visual Poetry, which Clemente has given to me. Bed at 1:00AM.

Thursday, December 5, 1991:

Wake up at 8:00AM. Out to get coffee and pastry and write some postcards. Go to pharmacies to find rubber gloves for the Shadow Performance. Clemente comes over at 10:30AM and we go to his house by bus. Watch videos of his past performances, and I show him the videotapes I've brought with me. Look through his archive. Drink matte with him, which is a drink unique to Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. It is like a tea, but is drunk through a metal straw. It tastes like the tea drunk in the Japanese Tea Ceremony, and is equally used as a conversational and ritualistic medium. Take a bus to the center and buy rubber stamps. Also go to the post office and buy sheets of postage stamps. Buy airplane tickets to Buenos Aires for Saturday. Padin calls G. G. G. Marx from a telephone store, and tells her my travel plans. Back to the Hotel Cervantes to shower. Then we go to the Goethe Institute and I give an eighty slide lecture on the history of Mail Art through it's publications. There is only a small group of people. Padin's wife calls to tell us that my wife, Paula, has called from Dallas. We go to a telephone store but are unable to contact her. Clemente walks me back to the hotel.

Friday, December 6, 1991:

Wake up at 6:30AM and call Paula in Dallas. She informs me that Pan Am has gone under. I will have to make alternate flight plans when I get to Santiago. Clemente arrives at the hotel and we walk to his place of work where we get a ladder. We then walk some two miles through crowded Montevideo streets to the Plaza Libertad and hang up the notices for the Shadow Performance, which we will give latter in the day. We then take the ladder back to the recreation center, and take a bus to Clemente's home, eat lunch, look through the archives, and take a siesta. Bus back to the Hotel Cervantes and get the paraphernalia for the Shadow Performance. Walk to the Amnesty International offices and change into the wetsuit and mask. Walk two blocks from Amnesty International to the Plaza Libertad in costume and then perform for about forty-five minutes. We draw a large crowd and people are eager to participate. After the performance we watch the video at the Amnesty offices that was taken of the performance. They give me a rubber stamp. Walk back to the Hotel Cervantes where I take a shower. Clemente and I go to the recreation center where we hold a Uruguyan Networker Pre-Congress with five others. Clemente and I represent the Mail Art Community, a video artist is there, and also someone from Amnesty International. Back to the hotel to pack up for the next day.

Saturday, December 7, 1991:

Wake up at 5:30AM and take a taxi to Clemente's home. From there his wife drives us to the airport. I take my leave from this man who I have grown to repect as a hard worker and committed individual. Like many Mail Artists I have met all over the world, Clemente has an energy that is too big for his hometown to contain. This energy manifests itself in constant communication and creativity in Mail Art. The Network is much the better for it. I take a 7:30AM flight to Buenos Aires and arrive at 8:15AM. Take a taxi to the Retiro bus station, where I take a bus to La Plata at 8:30AM. Arrive in La Plata at 10:00AM. I call Graciela and she arrives in ten minutes. We stop at a cafe for coffee and then take a taxi to her home. Drink matte. She shows me the invitations whe has made for my exhibition, and the newspaper notice for it. I give her a copy of the Annotated Bibliography as a gift. We take a taxi to the Post Office where I buy some expensive postage stamps. Postage stamps are only sold one day a week. Most of the mail in Argentina is metered. We walk through the city on the way home and Graciela is constantly stopped by friends along the way. This is obviously a woman with immense personality and charm, and I am instantly drawn to her. As our time together increases, this feeling only grows. I feel that I have traveled all this distance to meet an old friend, or rather someone who has become a friend instantly, because there are so many similarities between us. Graciela is a true mate of the soul. Back at Graciela's home I stamp exhibition invitations, and we eat pizza. Graciela's friend and fellow Mail Artist, Susana Lombardo, comes over. Graciela's son, Martin, comes back from Buenos Aires with a new drum kit. He is an art student and the drummer in a rock band called Zangar. Siesta. Susana comes back over in the evening and we go out to her and Graciela's dance/movement class based on the Feldenkrais method. In a pleasent dance studio we are shown videos and eat appetizers. We meet another woman friend of Graciela's, Adriana, and we go to a theater where we see a play performed by residents of a mental institution. We walk through the streets of La Plata on a busy Saturday night. People, especially young people, are on all the streets. I don't think I've seen a more frenzied weekend celebration anywhere. The people are well dressed and attractive. The culture is a mix of Spanish and Italian, with a bit of German thrown in for good measure. All the young women wear miniskirts or very tight jeans. I can't think of a better place to be on a Saturday night. Graciela, Adriana, and I, drink Sangria till 2:30AM.

Sunday, December 8, 1991:

Up at 11:00AM. Take impressions of Graciela's rubber stamps. Look at her joint work with Edgardo-Antonio Vigo. For years I thought these two La Plata artists were married. It turns out that they entered into an intense Mail Art collaboration, and used a combination of their names as a pseudonym. Graciela has kept a detailed accounting of the Mail Art shows and projects they entered together. Went to the bus station to get a ticket to Santiago, Chile, for Wednesday. Went to Edgardo-Antonio Vigo's home, and talked to him and his wife Elena. I gave him a copy of Mike Crane's Correspondence Art book, which he had requested from me, and he kindly presents me with a sample of his past works. His home is beautiful. A sprawling mansion accentuated by stained glass windows of the highest quality and marble floors. Only Vittore Baroni's house has ever come near it as the most splendid home of a Mail Artist that I have seen. To his credit, Vigo's work is everywhere, in the library and studios inside and attached to the house, and his wife tells me that the artwork of her husband has infiltrated into all corners of the house. We watch a video of the Montevideo Shadow Performance. Vigo, Elena, Graciela and I drive to Graciela's house. We meet Susana Lombardo, and I get my equipment for a performance. We drive to the La Plata river and do a Shadow Ritual. I call this a ritual, because it was a private event rather then the public displays I am used to. It was very nice in this regard. We go back to Graciela's house where we drink matte. After a siesta, we go to Susana's for a late evening snack of corn fritters and apple pie.

Monday, December 9, 1991:

Up at 8:00AM. Graciela and I go to the University radio station where we are interviewed and my exhibition at the Visual Arts Center is given publicity. We walk to the Chi-Go-Ma Rubber Stamp Store where the owner Jos� allows us to explore the back of the store and shows us how he makes the stamps (with a plaster cast). He gives me many handles and seconds and refuses payment. Graciela and I order a stamp to commemorate my visit. We go to another stamp store where I purchase a set of stamps and an Argentinian egg stamper for Bill Gaglione's rubber stamp museum in San Francisco. After a small meal in a cafe, we go to the Post Office and send a telegram to Hans Braum�ller in Santiago, Chile, informing him of my arrival on Thursday. Put together slide show for the exhibition opening in the evening. Susana Lombardo comes over at 5:00 with her parents car and takes us to the Visual Arts Center. We set up slides and look over the beautiful exhibit that Graciela and Susana have set up. It combines my artist postage stamp sheets with other networking materials from their collection. It is all woven together by rope. I set up a platform where I can lay out my rubber stamps and stamp out perforated sheets, invitation postcards and other materials for those that have come for the exhibition. A large crowd is on hand as there is another opening besides mine for an exhibition of icons. I stamp out the materials for about an hour, meet many people, and have a great time. Then I give a slide talk on Mail Art to a crowd of about thirty or forty. After the opening we go to a cafe to celebrate with Graciela, Martin, his friend Malena, Susana Lombardo and Adriana, who gives me a great cassette of new Tango music, which I listen to for most of the remaining portion of the trip. Back to Graciela's at midnight.

Tuesday, December 10, 1991:

Graciela goes to school to do some work and I read her copy of the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive Catalog, which contains her work, as well as many other Mail Artists. Martin and I go to Chi-Go-Ma to pick up the rubber stamp we ordered the previous day. Graciela and I write the Resolutions of our Pre-Congress, which reads:

Argentina Pre-Congress Resolutions: This or That about the Network:

We resolve that networks of people are more important then networks of art. That art can bring people together, but only people can desire to stay together.

We resolve that that anyone can desire to stay together if they are able to transform violence and selfishness into poetry.

We resolve that the Mail Art network can set an example for international cooperation by encouragiang a diversity of expression and not establishing one dominent culture.

We ressolve to live in Mail Art all day long and not be Mail Artists only when we communicate with long distant friends.

We resolve to share what we have learned in Mail Art with other emerging marginal networks of communication.

We need to believe that our poetical proposals of collective creation are the only works of art we can offer to the people interested in becoming renewed human beings.

We are able to make these resolutions since we found a true mate of the soul during this encounter and that we lived as an unlimited instance of eternity.

Susana and Daniel Perez, Graciela's good friend, comes over, and the women and I go to Graciela's studio. I lay down on some cardboard which they will later cut up and use in the making of Shadow murals. We also put our hands in mud and then pour plaster into it. Back at Graciela's home, I do an interview with her about how she became involved in Mail Art. It is an amazing story, which I will relate elsewhere. One of the main reasons I have come to South America is to find out about the very special blend of politics and art that is practiced here. My interview with Clemente, and now with Graciella have revealed intense insights for me, which I hope I can convey to a wider public. Graciela presents me with a book that she illustrated with her son Martin for the Mothers of Sons who Disappeared. This was a national tragedy of extreme violence against the public by the military. Shower. Light meal of fried potatoes and frankfurters.

Wednesday, December 11, 1991:

Wake up at 6:30AM to say goodbye to Graciela who must go to work. Have coffee with Martin and stamp out rubber stamps for Graciela. Pack. Susana Lombardo comes over at 11:45AM and we take a taxi to the bus station. Leave La Plata at 12:00 on the bus to Buenos Aires with Susana. We arrive in Buenos Aires at 2:00PM and have something to eat. We wait for the bus bound for Santiago at the bus station. Take the bus at 4:00PM direct for Santiago. It is a twenty-two hour bus trip. We stop for dinner along the way. We cross the pampas of Argentina as the sun goes down.

Thursday, December 12, 1991:

Arrive in Mendoza, which is a border town of Argentia and Chile high in the Andes, about 8:00AM. Cleared by customs in Argentina and Chile. Arrive in Santiago at 1:30PM and am meet by my host Hans Braum�ller and his new wife of two weeks, Susana. We drive to his fathers home in the �u�oz district, where he and Susana have sleeping quarters in a guest house. They are both recent graduates of Art School where they majored in painting. Call Eugenio Dittborn about a possible meeting. Take a bus downtown and straighten out my return flight home. I buy a ticket on American Airlines. We go to the Post Office and buy postage stamps. We also go to a store that sells rubber stamps for textiles. Then we go to the Museo Nacional of Beau Artes where Matta is having his first show in his own country in fifty years. Take a bus back to Han's home. Shower. Eat homemade pizza. Stamp out 120 copies of Han's Origin Mail Art project.

Friday, December 13, 1991:

Called Eugenio Dittborn, who was an early practitioner of Mail Art in Chile, and is now a renowned painter who will be the only entrant from Chile in the 1992 Documenta. We have a long discussion about his Mail Art activities and his recent Air Mail paintings. While talking he tells me of a 1985 meeting in Santiago of Mail Artists, which was interrupted by a street riot when the people demonstrated against Pinochet. It is a telling tale that will begin my story of the South American art experience. Carlos Montes de Oca comes over and we have a small Networker Congress. We go to the Universidad de Chile where I give a talk at the Department of Philosophy and Humanities on the history of Mail Art. About twenty-five people attend and they are very enthusiastic and ask alot of questions. I show them video of some past performances. We go back to Han's home and do an interview with the editor of a small alternative magazine. Hans, Susana, and I go to buy a present for Paula on a street devoted to selling lapis lazuli. In the evening we go downtown to an art studio, and I do the Shadow Performance for some ten or so people, including Carlos Montes de Oca. Back to Han's where I finish the rubber stampings for his Origin project.

Saturday, December 14, 1991:

Hans and Susana take me to the airport at 8:30AM. I'm supposed to take a 10:30AM plane to Miami, but I'm not allowed to board because I don't have the required tourist card. I go back to the center of Santiago to the Internationl Police station and get the necessary document. I go back to the airport and sign in on stand-by seating for the next plane to Miami, which is at 7:00PM. Luckily I get on, and I am on my way to Dallas to contemplate my two weeks in South America.

Sunday, December 15, 1991:

Arrive in Dallas at 8:30AM. Paula picks me up. Show and tell about the trip. I talk to Byron Black on the phone. He has come from his home in Indonesia with his wife to visit his parents. Call Daniel Plunkett to find out about his trip to Europe. Lots of mail awaits me.