Reply on 17-8-1995

AB: First I'd like to clarify for your readers, that the NPM has only 400pieces of mail art from my archive; a very small sampling from my 23-year-accumulation. I think the postal museums have taken an interest in mail-art, as they are loosing their primary position in the world of communication due to phone, FAX and e-mail. While stamp collectors will no doubt continue to treasure the little bits of paper the post offices of the world issue, fewer and fewer people resort to the post office when they wish to communicate. And of course, with telephones, fewer people write letters than they did in times past, so where are they going to turn for new support and interest? Mail-art fills the bill very nicely. It's interesting, lively, international, visual, playful, creative, and relatively cheap, as art goes... and ANYONE can do it!

The National Postal Museum of Canada has not been very forthcoming about their plans for this collection. The most I know, is that they will use it for educational purposes, and to that end, will probably mount exhibitions from it, and offer workshops in their little gallery within the Museum of Civilization. They have spoken to me about a second mail-art exhibition which would focus on artistamps. The dates mentioned are well in the future, and from my experience in negotiating with them, it will be some time before anything conclusive will come out of these talks. They did suggest that they would like me to be the guest artist when this exhibit does come about, and of course I said I would be most interested. However, I'm not holding my breath about this one... the NPM is part of the large bureaucratic structure of the National Museum, and as such, decisions take a very long time. I will certainly keep you posted on developments.

RJ: Especially the last decade a lot of publications have been written about mail art (mostly by male mail artists). Is it always true what is written down?

Reply on 8-9-1995

AB: That's a biggie! What is the TRUTH? People have been searching for that one for centuries. I believe to a larger extent, people write what they BELIEVE to be true, but none of us is objective, and we all have our histories, friends, experiences which filter our perceptions. Further, no one individual can tell the "whole story" of mail art, because no one individual has all the contacts - it's NOT a finite system. An outsider researches the phenomena would never be able to cover the whole picture, because while mail art is not a finite system, it is also a changing one. People are constantly discovering the phenomena and starting exchanges while others quit and go on to other forms of expression. If it were made extinct, by say, the termination of the international mail system, THEN, perhaps, someone could do a complete picture of it, but even then, it is unlike that one researcher could unearth all the persons involved and review all the work that has been exchanged. Nor do I think it important that every work and every practitioner get a mention.

The whole point of mail art has been to be involved in a creative, expressive PROCESS of exchange, between two or more parties. You send out, and you get back. You have an audience that responds. If they don't respond, you don't send to them any more. This is the nature of mail art, and it can be represented by describing the types of materials exchanged, and the persons one knows of who make these exchanges. But this isn't the same as a history of mail art, and I rather doubt we will ever read one that is completely satisfactory to our own perception of the story, because it will not reflect our view of the thing.

For example, in an essay introducing a bibliography of mail art that sounds like the complete history when you read it, unless you happened to be active during the periods described, and your contribution to the process doesn't get mentioned. This is the situation I found myself in with that essay. I was very active in the 70's, publishing both the Banana Rag and VILE Magazine. I felt both were focal points in the network, and know that many persons contributed material to VILE in the hopes of being published. I felt that VILE was THE show-place of the network during the period of its publication (74-81), yet I nor VILE got a mention in that essay. What was written was "true," but incomplete, yet that essay will be quoted as "the story of mail art."

That essay was published in a mail art show catalogue a couple of years before it appeared in the bibliography. I wrote to the author and asked why I and my contribution to the network were omitted. He didn't respond to the question at first, and when he eventually did, he really didn't give any reason. Then he published it, unchanged, in the bibliography. I was outraged. He was well aware of my work, and of VILE, yet he decided not to mention it. I reviewed the bibliography in Umbrella, questioning this omission. However, the book is published, and in circulation. It won't be changed. It has authority. It is a massive work and very well done. Why did he choose to exclude me from that essay? I don't know.

In May of '94, he and I were both at the mail art congress in Quebec city. I asked him again, in person, why he had omitted me from that essay, and why he had refused to alter the piece when I raised the issue. He said he just wrote what came to mind when he was writing, and that he never changes apiece once it is written. So, from his perspective, my work in recording the network during the 70's was not important. Who can argue with what another considers important? The problem is, that what is written sounds like the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, when in fact, there is a considerable amount of opinion being expressed about the truth, in both what is said, and in what is omitted.

I can't comment on a lot of the other publications on mail art that have come out, as I haven't had the time to read them all. However, I'm sure similar situations exists, and the contributions of many others, often women, have been overlooked, or disregarded in the great move now afoot, to record the history of mail art.

I think that, generally speaking, each person who writes about mail art attempts to tell "the true story." As readers, we have to remember that each person must and will tell it from their own perspective; with all their likes and dislikes, opinions, priorities, and experiences between them and the phenomena we've come to know as mail art.

RJ: Well, in a way I am looking for this "true story" and am currently doing these mail-interviews where I don't edit the answers as much as possible. I already sent you some interviews. Any reaction to the last one I sent you?

Reply on 8-9-1995

AB: I am enjoying reading the interviews, and found the current one you sent, arto posto's, to be quite stimulating. I was interested to note her making a distinction between the original mail art network, and the rubber-stamp net being spawned by Rubber stamp madness. I've been watching RSM's development for some time, and note that many of the advertisers are running CONTESTS to get readers to send in artworks, with PRIZES offered for the best work! This is NOT in the mail art tradition, nor is all the "how-to/techniques" articles that are run in RSM. What I see happening there, is the gentrification of mail art, ie. the "taming of the shrew."

Since RSM is basically a commercial magazine, with enormous amounts of advertising which represents a lot of money changing hands over the purchase of rubber stamps, supplies, papers, etc. all related to THE CRAFT of rubber-stamping, naturally, the results are more predictable. The focus in this rubber-stamp movement - moving into main stream America - is decorative, rather than revolutionary. This focus on craft and technique produces "pretty" art-works, but entirely misses the CONTENT with which mail art rubber stamping began; ie. the usurping of an initially business technology (the rubber stamp) for the expression of radical, anti-established, anti-consumerist sentiment.

I find it amusing and ironic that mail art, which while radical and critical in outlook, was always about inclusive; anyone can do it - everyone has something to say, everyone's work is to be of equal value, etc. etc. etc., is now being watered down by this great rubber-stamp connection to mail-stream America via RSM. In place of discussion of political, economical, human rights or artistic philosophies, we now find techniques and how-to articles flooding the pages. Criticism of the status quo has definitely taken the back seat, if it has not been left behind all together.

I was also interested in arto posto's comments about how she hasn't time to keep up with all the contacts she gets, let alone deal with all the responses she gets from the internet. That's why I have avoided the internet - I am already overwhelmed by the amount of mail I get, and I can't imagine trying to keep up with more. I am definitely NOT a mail-art crusader, nor do I approve of persons setting themselves up as mail-art experts, and doing workshops to teach others techniques, passing out mailing lists, etc. There are already too many people exchanging to be able to keep up with it all, without going out and beating the bushes to get more recruits.

The funny thing is, Vittore Baroni, Guy Bleus and other earlier mail artists (myself included) all started out attempting to contact EVERYONE in the network, then after a few years, realized that the more people one contacted, the heavier the burden of reply became. In the beginning, it was great fun to get lots of new contacts, but there seems to come a turning point, when the load gets too heavy, both in terms of one's time and $$$, when it is no longer possible to respond to everyone who sends you mail.... that response becomes a burden rather than a joy. Myself, Baroni and Bleus have all written on this point, and it appears that Baroni has pretty much dropped out of networking, and I have curtailed my mailings to fewer people, and very few shows, aside from Artistamp News to which individuals must subscribe, or I can't possibly afford to continue the contact. Bleus appears to be continuing to attempt to be there for everyone, and I wonder how long he will last at it.

RJ: Should the "earlier mail artists", as you call them, learn the newcomers what mail art is about, or should they find it out for themselves?

Reply on 26-9-1995

AB: I don't see it as the role of 'earlier mail artists" to instruct newcomers to the field. This is a free playing field, and one of the joys of it was the lack of rules - except, of course, rules were made up and issued - in some cases, almost as demands. This network is evolving, as it always has, since Johnson's first mailings, since the FLUXUS artists first mailings. In those days (1960's and 70's), it was perpetrated by artists who celebrated their being outside the "real art world." ...but who were none-the-less, big time players in that world. Those initial players were critical of the status quo on many levels; from the tightly focussed elitism of the Art World, to the "american way of life," (ie. consumption).

FILE magazine in the early 70's brought a whole other community of artists into contact with each other, and these were the artists who carried the ball after 1974. These were still persons who perceived themselves as artists, but ones who enjoyed their "outsider" status; artists who didn't get shows in commercial galleries, or anywhere else, and who celebrated their discontent with very dada sorts of artworks. The network became their showplace, and their disaffected attitudes and criticisms of main-stream America were exchanged via the mail; then, more frequently through the late 70's and 80's, were exhibited in mail art shows. The one-to-one exchanges were replaced by growing numbers of mail art exhibits and projects to which one could send one's work, and get one's name in a catalogue. Witness the show listings in Global Mail, if there is any question about this.

In the past five years or so, a number of practitioners (Michael Jacobs, John Held, Peter Küstermann, for example) seem to have become crusaders, and with an almost religious zeal, go about giving workshops to "get everyone to join in," rather than simply continuing to explore and enjoy their existing contacts. Providing information about the network seems OK to me - if people "get it," and want to participate, fine, one has facilitated that connection. However, these workshops in techniques seem self-serving in that, in the guise of "spreading the word," the motivation behind them is either to get paid the fee for doing the workshop, or to sell products; rubber stamps, supplies and equipment - which is a long way from the original critical stance of those engaged in mail art.

All that said, I must come back to your question and say I don't believe there are any valid "shoulds," in mail art. Mail art is an ever-changing, evolving networking practice, and it is futile to attempt to tell anyone how they "should" do it. For me, it is not as interesting to exchange with persons who focus on how-to/techniques, or concern about producing decorative, saleable greeting cards and the like, as with those whose focus is a critique of the society in which we live. However, if people are getting their creative juices flowing doing these things, then BRAVO. Carry on, do it, enjoy it, send it out and let the network evolve! This is still far superior to spending one's time in front of the tube, and I applaud it.

Maybe this is a good point to end? Unless you have some more provocative questions.... Go Bananas!

RJ: Yes, I think it is a good moment to end this interview. But even after ending the interview, I will keep asking questions now and then....!

Thank you for this interview.

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