JCM THE MUSEUM LIBRARY
"The majority of articles written about mail art are pretentious drivel." - M. Greenfield

Ruud Janssen with Mark Greenfield

(continued)


Reply on 1-11-1995

MG: My answer about texts was sincere. E-mail is again another tool. It is a very costly tool to set up. I like the fact that mail art has a potential for full international. E-mail alone would deny the opportunity for people less financially well off. I'm sure we both know peoples for whom it is a luxury to be able to afford the cost of postage. There is no way these people could afford computers, modems, printers.

E-mail is also irrelevant to me because most of the artists that I regularly keep in contact with do not have access to the facilities for E- mail.

If the e-mail artist wishes to ignore me and not communicate with me, then that is their loss. Most people who use E-mail and have a genuine desire to communicate, normally do so in more than one way, for example by snail-mail and E-mail. E-mail is another tool available for communication.

RJ: With your latest answer you included the flyers in which you ask people to return the 'large Marilyn envelopes'. I remember of some time ago that we also used to exchange the Marilyn-poster. Why are you so fascinated with her, and what was (is) this project about?

Reply on 22-11-1995

MG: The Marilyn Monroe idea is not a mail art project. It was an idea to do some collaboration art between some of my best mail art friends (the word 'some' is important, I definitely missed at least three).

The flyers I sent out do not ask for participants to take part in a mail art project, they ask for the return of a few of these art pieces that went astray. A few of my friends due to the fact that I do so many add and pass pieces of art apparently thought these also were. A couple of others still remain lost in a pile of mail waiting to be returned by the artists concerned.

The first idea came about because I am a 'bargain hunter'. I enjoy purchasing a useful quality products for next to nothing. A bookshop was selling off extremely cheap posters, several of which were Marilyn Monroe posters. I decided that these had potential for a good add to piece. Later I produced my own 'start' xerox posters of Marilyn Monroe.

Why do we love the Marilyn Monroe image? Please read any of the numerous books written about Marilyn Monroe. Its far too complex magic to explain here. The legend is still as strong as ever. The public are still fascinated with everything to do with Marilyn Monroe.

Several Pop Artists created art with Marilyn Monroe as the subject, the most famous image is by Andy Warhol. One of my Marilyn Monroe art pieces is a reworking of a Marilyn Monroe image by Willem De Kooning.

I wanted to produce new versions of Marilyn Monroe for the new Millennium. It is all to do with M!! I also liked the idea that the Marilyn Monroe image is seen as being related to Pop art because my art is a development from Pop art. Perhaps this is something I wanted to say. It is difficult to write critically about your own work. I wanted to produce colourful, exciting, sexy, mail art.

RJ: Were you active in the DNC (Decentralized Networker Congress) in 1992? Have you had some encounters with other mail artists?

Reply on 15-11-1995

MG: Ah, I suppose the reason I'm being asked this question is because I took such a strong stance on this subject. However the person you should be asking this question is Keith Bates. Keith wrote a very good text on this subject in one of his project documentations.

At the time a Switz guy had an idea that 1992 was going to be Networking Congress year. This was well published and got blown out of all proportions by the self important group of text writers!!! 1992 was the year of mail art visiting, the year of mail art tourism. Quite frankly it got completely out of hand, to the extent that total strangers felt that they could turn up on my doorstep and expect to have a place to stay. In some cases I'd had absolutely no prior contact with the person in anyway whatsoever.

I hate dictatorship, some 'people' had decided that they were going to enforce that 1992 was Networking Congress Year and what this meant and that I had no say or control on this subject! Sorry Guys, I'm a strong believer in Freedom of choice.

I'm very protective of my family and there was no way I wanted these strangers, some of whom were total weirdos, coming scarring my family, especially whilst I was out. Also my house is fairly small and I've not got the finance to 'support' these visitors. Another point is that I just did not want to meet these people.

I did not believe that this meeting or visiting other people was an important part of mail art. In a matter of fact I thought it was completely irrelevant! It is not a necessary part of mail art. Keith Bates text made this very clear.

I produced a single sheet based on Keith text. I used a section of his text headed 'Networker Statement', a few other sentences from his text, some relevant visuals, and to this I added the statement 'I agree with Keith Bates'. I xeroxed one hundred copies originally, although now the total I have xeroxed must be over a thousand copies. What I did was to put his statement all on one side of an A4 size paper, this made it 'user friendly' and I know that a number of people also copied and used my version of Keith's text.

Certainly I'm not opposed to this visiting or meeting but it has to be in the right way 'asking and receiving an invitation being part of the process'.

RJ: So, did you ever meet another mail artist? How was it like?

Reply on 5-1-1996

MG: I think it would be extremely difficult to be a serious practicing artist for as many years as I've been, not to meet any artists. However I do not wish to "list" here all the artists I have met and do not want to comment on what I thought of those meetings.

As to the future I would like to meet artists whom I have more affinity with. Certainly the artists I most respect in mail art I have not met yet, I think this may change in the coming year. I just hope by meeting that I do not destroy some excellent friendships.

RJ: This is actually quite interesting. Most contacts by mail give a certain "view" about the person one is writing to. When both meet it can be that the "view" is just an illusion and was made up in ones head and that the mail only showed a part of the life of the mail artist. On the other hand the "view" might be even more beautiful in reality than one could imagine.... But OK, lets focus on you rather than the other mail artists. I also have a certain view about you with the mail & art I get from you. Are there also things you do which has nothing to do with mail art and is interesting to know?

Reply on 26-1-1996

MG: The question you ask is too unspecific. There are lots of aspects of my life which could be of interest, most of my life and family has nothing to do with mail art. But I think that what you are trying to imply is what art do I do that has nothing to do with mail art?

The term "nothing to do with" mail art may be incorrect to use concerning pieces of my art which are not mail art. Of the pieces that I create which are not mail art, they are actually normally related nowadays to my mail art.

Probably one of the last sculptures I produced was called "Soldier Box".

From the title you can guess that this is connected to the subject of the 'Y' project. This sculpture however was not intended to be about just Yugoslavia but about wars in general. The wax medium of the soldiers I found made it a fairly unmailable piece of art, because the wax was too brittle.

A lot of the art that I produce which is not mail art is also related to my mail art because it is very similar, "it's just not mailed". I love the xerox medium and use this in several ways, for example to produce single sheet pieces of art, to producing booklets. Booklets in particular I will use various printing methods, again these I will also use in mail art. Another method I have recently used to create art is collage, and again this medium I obviously make use of in mail art.

RJ: Well, an unspecific question mostly reveals a lot about the thoughts of the one that is interviewed through his answer. As you will have noticed the interviews I do aren't just questionnaires, I would like to see what someone makes a mail artist, and what it means for someone to be a mail artist. Some artists are only involved in the network for a specific time-period and after exploring it they leave.

Others get 'hooked for life' to the unexpected communication that arrives at ones mailbox. What is the case for you? You could answer with "I don't know", but I am curious to the essence of what mail art brings for you?

Reply on 20-2-1996

MG: The answer is that I'm so extremely busy creating art and enjoy this creation that there is little time to contemplate the future of mail art. I never know what the future holds! If there is an end to mail art then I'm sure we'll know about it when it gets near! We all have a restricted time span in so much as we will all die one day, so it is not possible to do mail art for ever.

Much of my present art is a form of communication by mail and I would like to think that I could always remain friends and in contact with some of the persons that I have had very good contact with.

The format of my art will probably change. At present I'm enjoying producing xeroxes and rubber stamping and all the other various methods I use in my mail art. If a new format or method became available which I was able to enjoy using artistically then I would use it.

I could give up xeroxing and the formats I presently use. I like the freedom to use whatever medium I want whenever I want.

There is a far larger audience available rather than just other mail artists. By communicating with only other mail artists we are only communicating with the "converted", and many of the people I keep in regular contact with have similar views to myself on a range of subjects as well as art. If a more effective way of communicating my art to a wider audience became available to me, I would use this, but as previously stated I would like to stay in contact with some of the people I'm presently communicating with.

RJ: Well, I guess this is a good moment to end the interview. I sure hope that we will stay in contact and will exchange our ideas and art.

- END -


Reproduced with the permission of
TAM
Further reproduction without the written consent of
Ruud Janssen and the Artist is prohibited.

Mail-artist: M. Greenfield, P.O.Box 409, Newcastle, Staffs - ST5 3LW. ENGLAND
Interviewer: Ruud Janssen - TAM, P.O.Box 1055, 4801 BB Breda, NETHERLANDS

For additional information E-mail Ruud Janssen


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