This part is in construction. But you can already find parts of the translation.
Guy Stuckens
RELATIONAL ASPECT OF ACTUAL ART : « MAIL-ART »
Part 1
« Jeder Mensch ist ein Kunstwerk. » (J.Beuys)
= Every man is an art piece.
« La liberté en art, c’est de n’être esclave d’aucune donnée fournie par la vision conventionnelle des choses, de n’être esclave d’aucune théorie et de savoir dominer la méthode que l’on s’impose. » (M.Gromaire)
= Liberty in art is not to be a slave from any data given by a conventional vision of things, not to be a slave from any theory et to be able to dominate the method that we give ourselfs.
« Je signe tout. » (Ben)
= I sign everything.
POLITICAL ASPECT
FACING THE RULING IDEOLOGY
It is not possible to define a political typology of mail-art. Although mail-art does not refer –in principle– to any party or to any ideology, it nevertheless defends some well specified ideas. But the question is more a political philosophy, broad ideas than a well-defined ideology.
Mario Borillo underlines [B2] in front of artists who declare themselves member of an “avant-garde”, in connexion with the intelligentsia and the cultural institution which prevails itself in an explicit way as a part of the dominant ideology of the establishment named “in opposition” and of which the essential idea is “to adhere to the systems of thinking of the social-political elite (universities, publishing-firms, intellectual staff of the political parties), systems whose common denominator is a relation of filiation with the values and the dominant figures of the cultural tradition; characterized on the understood conceptual level by the attachment to the notions of continuity, to the historic ‘progress’; and in spite of the ritual homage to the ‘dialectics’, to the representatives which are not inconsistent with the order of the things”, “on a moment when the scientifics themselves [118] begin to lay down the bases of a non-unitary conception of the world [119]”, “the galaxy of artists and experimental poets rather recover themselves on the historic break and the conceptual contradiction. The global denial of every world system is explicitly squeezed out in the individual positions and in a more significative way also in its divergent multiplicity, so much it is clear for all that the very sharp sentiment of belonging to a defined community is not based on the concerning by an unitary speech and by an eventually ‘right’ thinking, but on existential elements and daily practicals.”
This is what Cavellini or Karla Sachse express declaring that “mail-art looks like a little window open on the world” [81]. It is particularly true for the artists of the countries of the East or those of South-America, which do not possess the political or material possibility to travel. In front of rigid political systems, artists such as Joseph Huber (DDR) avoiw : “It is not easy for us to make our ideas known, because we do not have the means therefor (newspapers, radios, …)” [120].
Joseph Huber declares having two productions : one for mailing and another for showing in his country.
It is obvious that the absence of means for rapid reproduction, as the photocopier constitutes a serious handicap in those countries. This of course influences the realisation of works [121].
If Poland is the only country where mail-art is recognized in an official way [122] and to ascertain to its artists and mail-artists some liberty of action, from the USSR some informations occasionally filter about the existence of creative groups (grounded at Moscow and Leningrad) and even (but very rarely) of mail-art works [123].
In the series of political obstacles which hinder the traffic of mail-art works and projects, we can name the controls of the mail on the frontiers. So it is impossible to send a (music)cassette to the DDR (East Germany) and the magazines rarely arrive [124]. If more material reaches one’s journey’s end in Poland, it is probably because the controls there are not as well organised.
But those police controls are not the appanage of the Eastern countries : mail send from West Germany to DDR is controlled by the West-German secret offices, in the neighbourhood of Munich (perhaps on the request of the DDR) [125]. Some mentions or labels affixed on the envelopes excite the curiosity of the police services and this is often unknown by the senders [126].
The custom-services occasionally mingle, under different pretexts (struggle against drugs ?) and sometimes destroy irremediably the controlled works [127]. In some regions, the mail services do not work with all the care they habitually give; this causes losses, alteration of the contents of the parcels, etc..
It is true that some mail-artists, in their care to offend and not to let the mail intermediaries indifferent, are playing with fire. Therefore inscriptions qualifying the contents of the parcel as “subversive”, or worse, designs or photography’s with pornographical character, in order to make the sending look exceptional !
The mail-art as « universal fact » [128] and expression which goes « beyond the frontiers » also represents the possibility for the artists of the poor countries to have an international activity without obligation of moving. This is the case for the mail-artists of South-America where in front of the financial and geographical problems of distance from the principal artistical centres of the world (North-America, West-Europe), we must add the fluctuation of the political regimes. So it is not rare for some mail-artists to be imprisoned. In Chili, the artist Andrès Diaz Poblete is moving between his residence, the prison and the relegation in the Land of Fire. In Uruguay, some mail-artists as Clemente Padin or Jorge Caraballo were imprisoned for « communism »; it is not surprising that, since their liberation, they are very active in the artistic world, in favour of the liberty of expression and of the liberation of all the political prisoners.
Presently, Clemente Padin animates the magazine Participacion, which announces mail-art exhibitions and projects and admits an important place to the calls in favour of artists and intellectuals imprisoned under different governments (mainly in Latin-America). The artistes of those countries also created associations such as the « Asociación Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Artistas-Correo » [129], whose purpose is to diffuse information concerning cases of imprisoned artists. Other associations as « Cole tivo 3 » in Mexico or « Solidarita Italia » -enlivened at Milan by Ruggero Maggi- take part of this work, as about tens of mail-artists or magazines of all parts of the world [130].
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Part 2
« Ce mot qui ne signifie rien : ‘Vous êtes artiste !’ » (A.Breton)
= That word who means nothing : You are an artist !
« L’homme n’accède à soi-même que par les autres hommes … » (K.Jaspers)
= Man can only reach himself by the other men.