RADAR 13 - Neo–Politic and The Art of Distance
Publication Date: March, 2005
Phoenix Rising: Is Mail Art Dead?
Creative Alliance at the Patterson
3134 Eastern Avenue
410.276.1651
http://www.creativealliance.org
January 26 – February 5
For a young G.I. stuck halfway around the world in Korea, mail call can be pretty important. "I really liked
getting mail. I still like it. I enjoy the communication more than anything else," says Paul Mitchell-Summers,
one-time G.I., avid participant in mail art, long time culture-jammer, and Reverend in the satirical Church of the
Subgenius. Now a construction worker, Mitchell-Summers studied ceramics and printmaking, worked in the maintenance
department and as a model at the Maryland Institute, and attended many of the art "happenings" - tongue-in-cheek
parties and performance pieces meant to shake up the status quo - that took place in Baltimore during the Reagan
era.
Recently, after over twenty years of swapping art-covered letters, postcards and packages with strangers worldwide,
Paul realized he wasn't hearing from as many people: "I didn't know if it was skittishness about
sending anything after 9-11, or maybe people were just busy or couldn't afford it or in shock." The call
for entries for Phoenix Rising, postcards asking "Is mail art dead?" brought in eighty-one participants,
many from Europe, South America, or other far-flung points. That this casual, fairly rapidly planned show had global
reach on par with the much more formal Tour De Clay is a testament to the speed and expansiveness of communication
between postal artists. Just as it turns out that video really only maimed the radio star, the web is not quite the
threat to the tangible arts it was expected to be. In fact e-mail has made it easier to send calls for mail art,
while underscoring the ways that "real mail," with its layers of marks and evidence of a travel history,
remains special.
Contrary to expectations that all the work might be somehow low-fi or homemade-feeling, the show demonstrated a wide
range of techniques. While some entries did share the aesthetic of the hand-drawn rock show flyer or scribbled diary
'zine, much of the best work on display used intricate, meticulous production methods. Standouts featured virtuosic
printmaking, or creative takes on rubber stamping or postage such as buZZ blurr's stamp designs featuring stencil
portraits of mail artists; Clemente Padin of Uruguay's anti-war, anti-corporate printed figures and insignia;
and Virginian Jassy Lupa's interactive postcard of a Buddha (with a USPS logo tattooed on his arm) walking
out of flames bearing a tiny un-charred envelope. When opened, a small letter recounted the artist's dream
about mail art's rebirth. Envelopes were saved and displayed alongside the work - decoration of the package,
both by the artist and by the post office, was often the main event. When there was packaging at all, that is. Local
artist Daniel VanAllen put postage and address on a foot-long bone, which arrived intact at an Eastern Avenue address.
While the movement's early days involved a certain amount of playing "Test the Post Office," Jed
Dodds, artistic director of the Creative Alliance, says, "Mail artists have some sympathy for the little guy,
or even hope that they provide the bright spot in some postal worker's day."
Just who are mail artists and what do they do? People can become mail artists without realizing that they're
part of an art trend. Kids that decorate letters with stickers and glitter, pen pals who illustrate, makers of homemade
envelopes, or anyone who uses images in their correspondence is to some extent a mail artist. Katherine Fahey, a
local artist and Phoenix Rising participant, once found an addressed envelope littering a sidewalk. For years Fahey
and a friend anonymously sent postcards, art and packages to the stranger's P.O. box. "Maybe we were
harassing him," she laughs. "We liked imagining him opening these things and feeling lucky to get them."
Mail art's formal history stems from Dada, Surrealism and the Fluxus movement. Enigmatic collage and performance
artist Ray Johnson is often called the father of mail art. Certainly the genre's habit of tweaking the government
through a government system, and its ironic stance towards everything from the art economy to mail art itself, owe
a debt to Johnson. (As ironies go it's difficult to decide which is more bizarre: Johnson's final performance
piece, his 1995 art installation/suicide, or the fact that someone whose work was all about deconstructing art has
himself become such a monolithic figure.)
In 1983, Paul Mitchell-Summers was drawn to Baltimore at the same time and for the same reasons he became interested
in mail art - a cultural scene with a prankster-ish, sometimes political spirit that was often bizarre but rarely
elitist or mean-spirited... If Phoenix Rising was notable primarily because it offered local mail artists a chance
to meet, as well as a decent introduction for newcomers to a relatively obscure art subculture, it was also intriguing
because, for all its internationalism, the aesthetic and sense of humor felt an awful lot like home.
