Mail Artist sold on ebay?
honoria
Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 02, 2002 11:20PM |
sci sam
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 03, 2002 05:36AM |
<HTML>yes Kiyotei sold me on ebay, I was worth less than 10 bucks I believe
it stemmed from a discussion hosted on the previous incarnation of this message board.
was that in 2000? a couple years ago anyway.
in those days I would go on a serious bend taking one side of an argument, to play it out and see where it went, as I remember I was on the anti-mailart-sales side on that one. The clear implication was a tounge in cheek jab that he owned me
he took the idea that mailart was up for sale and carried it to the next step, selling the mail artist in whole
At one time, Merlin was keeping an archive of all the posts on that old messageboard, maybe the "ebay/mailartist for sale" posts still exist on his hard drive?
sam</HTML>
it stemmed from a discussion hosted on the previous incarnation of this message board.
was that in 2000? a couple years ago anyway.
in those days I would go on a serious bend taking one side of an argument, to play it out and see where it went, as I remember I was on the anti-mailart-sales side on that one. The clear implication was a tounge in cheek jab that he owned me
he took the idea that mailart was up for sale and carried it to the next step, selling the mail artist in whole
At one time, Merlin was keeping an archive of all the posts on that old messageboard, maybe the "ebay/mailartist for sale" posts still exist on his hard drive?
sam</HTML>
kiyotei
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 03, 2002 06:48PM |
<HTML>Young Sam, you were item#559177986 and you were purchased during March 2001 by Ed Giecek of Neah Bay, WA.
Not sure of the amount - tried to use the "Wayback Machine":
[www.archive.org]
to look for dead pages, but eBay blocks archiving with robot.txt
Did find this blast from the past:
[web.archive.org]
I don\'t really remember thinking that I "owned" you, just wanted to poke fun at the idea of mailart being for sale.
Q - What is better than buying mailart?
A- Why buying a mailartist, of course!
Just like the goose that lays the golden eggs!
Take care my friend - looking forward to your NEW & Improved site.
kiyotei
(Chinese rat-born)</HTML>
Not sure of the amount - tried to use the "Wayback Machine":
[www.archive.org]
to look for dead pages, but eBay blocks archiving with robot.txt
Did find this blast from the past:
[web.archive.org]
I don\'t really remember thinking that I "owned" you, just wanted to poke fun at the idea of mailart being for sale.
Q - What is better than buying mailart?
A- Why buying a mailartist, of course!
Just like the goose that lays the golden eggs!
Take care my friend - looking forward to your NEW & Improved site.
kiyotei
(Chinese rat-born)</HTML>
Ed Giecek
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 05, 2002 01:38AM |
kiyotei
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 05, 2002 02:56AM |
<HTML>Dang!!
I thought I sent him to you overnight express! Oh well, he was insured so I'll send you a check once the claim is processed. "Trust me!"
I was wondering where that negative feedback on ePay came from.
How is the new ebsite working out for you my friend?
Visit Ed's place:
www.giecek.com
Lots of good Eggzstuff to buy cheep cheep! Still have my original Ed watercolor of titled "Johnny's Ranch" hanging in a place of honor above my tech bookshelf next to a chinese vase and a monster pine cone!
And believe me . . .
"The check is in the mail."
Take care my peeps,
kiyotei
(power seller wanabee)
P.S. - Ed: - How's your brother Rudy making out on that Montana whorehouse trial?
Is this the final verdict: [dli.state.mt.us];
I thought I sent him to you overnight express! Oh well, he was insured so I'll send you a check once the claim is processed. "Trust me!"
I was wondering where that negative feedback on ePay came from.
How is the new ebsite working out for you my friend?
Visit Ed's place:
www.giecek.com
Lots of good Eggzstuff to buy cheep cheep! Still have my original Ed watercolor of titled "Johnny's Ranch" hanging in a place of honor above my tech bookshelf next to a chinese vase and a monster pine cone!
And believe me . . .
"The check is in the mail."
Take care my peeps,
kiyotei
(power seller wanabee)
P.S. - Ed: - How's your brother Rudy making out on that Montana whorehouse trial?
Is this the final verdict: [dli.state.mt.us];
Ed Giecek
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 05, 2002 05:04PM |
<HTML>K-Dog... We gotta stop meetin like this... we're still unpacking and moving in to our new space. It'zZ gonna take a while.
Yeah, Rudy won the lawsuit, but getting the money is another story.
[www.thedumasbrothel.com]
Thank'zZ for your kind words about Jonny's Ranch.
Tryin ta keep the mailart flowing...
See you there.
--ed</HTML>
Yeah, Rudy won the lawsuit, but getting the money is another story.
[www.thedumasbrothel.com]
Thank'zZ for your kind words about Jonny's Ranch.
Tryin ta keep the mailart flowing...
See you there.
--ed</HTML>
sci sam
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 06, 2002 08:02AM |
Incommunicado Avocado
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 07, 2002 09:17PM |
<HTML>Sci Sam
I once again listened to the fine tape you sent me. I thought about the music about music and the metalanguage. I also read an article "What is poetry? And Does it Pay?" Jacob Silverstein- Harpers. The article must read like satire to anyone outside of poetry circles. (the Nine rings of Hell)
It is painfully funny. John Held did declare that mailart is dead did he not.
It's kind of strange that when I pimped my way through this site. My non-knowledge of mailart where there are no rules was typically a disadvantage. I did not know about the mailart giants. Did not know that solemnity would fill my soul at the mention of iconoclasts like Ray Johnson. But even the President of the USA must stand naked or kneal or prostrate
himself..I guess. It is inevitable that my knowledge gained through the many readings of the histories of mailartists will become obsolete before I get to the podium but I would like to intone long-live mailart upon the happy birthday of its death. How much cash can John Held fetch? Whatever it is I hope it is top dollar. Here's to mailart..the peoples' art the art of the proletariat the art of the common dudes the art without out rules but some facts. So what's new Sci Sam? Have you returned to verbalism, in essence
returned to the fold? Am I being too cirquitous?? Are you or are you not a verbalist?
Somehow through the poetries connecting the dots I found Mark Sonnenfeld beginning with babynous and ending with I forget but thanks for the leads Sonnenfeld and I..well I have this idea maybe we or another business partner who knows with all the fear and trembling maybe Ed Gieck will sell you to me or to us as the case maybe and we can kill the people who made you wear that awful muzzle..NO TALKING!!! Restore what's left of your speech patterns see if they are funny hopefully get you a new suit..hell with the kind of money I'm prepared to go to the mat for we could perhaps go to Gingis formals wear or Crazy Eddies outfit
you with verbs and adverbs and pronouns..pronouns jez Sam remember you loved pronouns before this tyrant E>G> who shall remain nameless bought you and gave you the silence command. I have plans Sam I don't know how there's a will there's a way soon you'll be using dangling participles and the whole mistake ridden double negatives but you'll be a verbalist a restored verbalist. Shall I venture to say a reborn verbslist and
the mailartist thing is dead and gone and forget about it
Jacqui</HTML>
I once again listened to the fine tape you sent me. I thought about the music about music and the metalanguage. I also read an article "What is poetry? And Does it Pay?" Jacob Silverstein- Harpers. The article must read like satire to anyone outside of poetry circles. (the Nine rings of Hell)
It is painfully funny. John Held did declare that mailart is dead did he not.
It's kind of strange that when I pimped my way through this site. My non-knowledge of mailart where there are no rules was typically a disadvantage. I did not know about the mailart giants. Did not know that solemnity would fill my soul at the mention of iconoclasts like Ray Johnson. But even the President of the USA must stand naked or kneal or prostrate
himself..I guess. It is inevitable that my knowledge gained through the many readings of the histories of mailartists will become obsolete before I get to the podium but I would like to intone long-live mailart upon the happy birthday of its death. How much cash can John Held fetch? Whatever it is I hope it is top dollar. Here's to mailart..the peoples' art the art of the proletariat the art of the common dudes the art without out rules but some facts. So what's new Sci Sam? Have you returned to verbalism, in essence
returned to the fold? Am I being too cirquitous?? Are you or are you not a verbalist?
Somehow through the poetries connecting the dots I found Mark Sonnenfeld beginning with babynous and ending with I forget but thanks for the leads Sonnenfeld and I..well I have this idea maybe we or another business partner who knows with all the fear and trembling maybe Ed Gieck will sell you to me or to us as the case maybe and we can kill the people who made you wear that awful muzzle..NO TALKING!!! Restore what's left of your speech patterns see if they are funny hopefully get you a new suit..hell with the kind of money I'm prepared to go to the mat for we could perhaps go to Gingis formals wear or Crazy Eddies outfit
you with verbs and adverbs and pronouns..pronouns jez Sam remember you loved pronouns before this tyrant E>G> who shall remain nameless bought you and gave you the silence command. I have plans Sam I don't know how there's a will there's a way soon you'll be using dangling participles and the whole mistake ridden double negatives but you'll be a verbalist a restored verbalist. Shall I venture to say a reborn verbslist and
the mailartist thing is dead and gone and forget about it
Jacqui</HTML>
Incommunicado Avocado
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 08, 2002 07:24AM |
<HTML>Dear Sam,
What's your speculative bid for a John Zorn on vinyl . No actual transaction just what do you think its worth ? Inquiring minds want to know.
Maybe Bill Wilson knows John Zorn. He knows everybody in New York.
I really can't say much at the last listening to my only copy of Sci Sam it sounded something like hyper techno as if techno needed to be hyped??????????????????????????????
Love and Kisses,
The Jaded one in the Boondocks</HTML>
What's your speculative bid for a John Zorn on vinyl . No actual transaction just what do you think its worth ? Inquiring minds want to know.
Maybe Bill Wilson knows John Zorn. He knows everybody in New York.
I really can't say much at the last listening to my only copy of Sci Sam it sounded something like hyper techno as if techno needed to be hyped??????????????????????????????
Love and Kisses,
The Jaded one in the Boondocks</HTML>
Bill Wilson
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 10, 2002 03:22AM |
<HTML>Maybe Bill Wilson knows John Zorn. He knows everybody in New York.
I catch the implication, which may be good humored, but I'm sensitive about generalizations applied to me, and encourage statements tailored to verifiable facts. I quoted apt poetry by John Ashbery, then said more about him. He once spoiled an essay of mine by giving it a cleverly flip title in Art News---I told him I'd like to title one of his poems for him, but he didn't accept. He happened to move into the house next door. We were acquainted as neighbors, complaining about the condition of fruit and vegetables in the supermarket, yet noting in its aisles a brand of soap called "Cheer." Susan Sontag can look down into my overgrown garden from her penthouse, but we are not acquainted; yet once she hugged me, almost the only scaldingly sincere embrace I can remember, at a time when we were grieving the death of Paul Thek. My chest still sears with the imprint of true feeling. For forty years I conscientiously declined to meet art dealers, met very few critics, and refused to have dinner with Clement Greenberg, whom I saw no point in meeting. I stepped on the feet of Harold Rosenberg while performing in a Robert Morris dance or performance piece, but didn't introduce myself. I have rarely allowed myself to be introduced to anyone who was famous, or obviously aspiring to become famous, and if a friend became famous I withdrew. I like to make statements of praise and of gratitude to artists I admire, but I do it stupidly like a ghost, and usually get away without saying my name. I did seek to meet Harold Brodkey, yet at a party for him declined to meet Lauren Bacall (but my son bantered with her at a different party, so again I had deprived myself of a reality because of phantoms loose in my brain). The most famous actor I have met was the late Rita Gam, who was not friendly right down to the freezing point; she wanted to meld minds with a sensitive painter who wanted her to buy a painting. At a party in Bette Midler's loft, she ravishingly wearing coarse overalls and no makeup, I eluded an introduction. So I actually know very few people in the arts, and outside the arts I am simply not well liked, as you may imagine. I have said that I have met most of the important visual artists in New York once, and have hoped never to see them again---except for a few who are always on probation awaiting a retrial. One false move and I'm outta' there. In the US, nothing fails like success, and fame deteriorates into ill-fame, as celebrity news illustrates daily. Winona Ryder! Who is next? Miss Carolina topless? I am shocked, shocked!
I respect that solemnity might fill your soul at the mention of Ray Johnson---that is an experience in which you are but doing justice; and if you file an appeal based on your reasoned scepticism about greatness, yet grant a retrial, and perhaps appeal from that judgment with yet another retrial, then you do justice to yourself and to him. I was lucky enough to become a kind of stage-hand behind Ray's performance of his life, and the stage-hand doesn't become an acquaintance of the audience (maybe doesn't even want to). I wish that you could see Nick Maravel's videos of Ray for unsophisticated visual intimacy; otherwise the two edited films are both useful, and much more, although they can't help but insert distracting stuff between the viewer and Ray.</HTML>
I catch the implication, which may be good humored, but I'm sensitive about generalizations applied to me, and encourage statements tailored to verifiable facts. I quoted apt poetry by John Ashbery, then said more about him. He once spoiled an essay of mine by giving it a cleverly flip title in Art News---I told him I'd like to title one of his poems for him, but he didn't accept. He happened to move into the house next door. We were acquainted as neighbors, complaining about the condition of fruit and vegetables in the supermarket, yet noting in its aisles a brand of soap called "Cheer." Susan Sontag can look down into my overgrown garden from her penthouse, but we are not acquainted; yet once she hugged me, almost the only scaldingly sincere embrace I can remember, at a time when we were grieving the death of Paul Thek. My chest still sears with the imprint of true feeling. For forty years I conscientiously declined to meet art dealers, met very few critics, and refused to have dinner with Clement Greenberg, whom I saw no point in meeting. I stepped on the feet of Harold Rosenberg while performing in a Robert Morris dance or performance piece, but didn't introduce myself. I have rarely allowed myself to be introduced to anyone who was famous, or obviously aspiring to become famous, and if a friend became famous I withdrew. I like to make statements of praise and of gratitude to artists I admire, but I do it stupidly like a ghost, and usually get away without saying my name. I did seek to meet Harold Brodkey, yet at a party for him declined to meet Lauren Bacall (but my son bantered with her at a different party, so again I had deprived myself of a reality because of phantoms loose in my brain). The most famous actor I have met was the late Rita Gam, who was not friendly right down to the freezing point; she wanted to meld minds with a sensitive painter who wanted her to buy a painting. At a party in Bette Midler's loft, she ravishingly wearing coarse overalls and no makeup, I eluded an introduction. So I actually know very few people in the arts, and outside the arts I am simply not well liked, as you may imagine. I have said that I have met most of the important visual artists in New York once, and have hoped never to see them again---except for a few who are always on probation awaiting a retrial. One false move and I'm outta' there. In the US, nothing fails like success, and fame deteriorates into ill-fame, as celebrity news illustrates daily. Winona Ryder! Who is next? Miss Carolina topless? I am shocked, shocked!
I respect that solemnity might fill your soul at the mention of Ray Johnson---that is an experience in which you are but doing justice; and if you file an appeal based on your reasoned scepticism about greatness, yet grant a retrial, and perhaps appeal from that judgment with yet another retrial, then you do justice to yourself and to him. I was lucky enough to become a kind of stage-hand behind Ray's performance of his life, and the stage-hand doesn't become an acquaintance of the audience (maybe doesn't even want to). I wish that you could see Nick Maravel's videos of Ray for unsophisticated visual intimacy; otherwise the two edited films are both useful, and much more, although they can't help but insert distracting stuff between the viewer and Ray.</HTML>
The Muse is Over-flowing! Andy
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 13, 2002 12:08PM |
<HTML>Bill,
Thanks for encouraging my quest. I didn't even know ray Johnson existed until a (?) year ago. Where have I been all my life? Did you ever know Sandy Daily? She sent me these flowers from Canada called "Bittersweet"
and they were Code Orange. New American Writing is doing something for the Russians from the thirties. Really good translators are hard to find much less own. Ok?
Love,
J.</HTML>
Thanks for encouraging my quest. I didn't even know ray Johnson existed until a (?) year ago. Where have I been all my life? Did you ever know Sandy Daily? She sent me these flowers from Canada called "Bittersweet"
and they were Code Orange. New American Writing is doing something for the Russians from the thirties. Really good translators are hard to find much less own. Ok?
Love,
J.</HTML>
Incommunicado Avocado
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 08, 2002 02:58AM |
Trippy
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 09, 2002 12:59AM |
Bill Wilson
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 10, 2002 05:14PM |
<HTML>?All mailartists are for sale,? you have written.
A statement like that is a tautology, not a statement of fact. You cannot verify that all mailartists are for sale, while the statement could be disproved by the evidence of one mailartist who is not for sale. You can only mean that by your definition to be a mailartist is to be for sale---that you use the word ?mailartist? to point with at only those mailartists who would sell themselves. Hence the emptiness of your tautology, a sentence that spins its wheels because it gets no traction in events. A statement, to be meaningful, needs to overcome some resistance from facts, perhaps; it helps if a statement can be verified by testimony or documents; doubts arise if there is no way the statement could be false, that is, proved to be false, because then it may not be saying much. ?All mailartists are for sale.? ?But she is not for sale.? ?Well, I don?t call her a mailartist anyway.? For R. G. Collingwood, the meaning of a statement is as an answer to an investigative question. What would the question be to which the answer is, ?All mailartists are for sale?? You could probe your sentence in order to find out what your feelings are, and then offer a statement about them, on which you could become an expert. I am curious about your feelings about experiences which may have led to a statement that doesn?t express those feelings, or describe those experiences, but renders a meaningless accusation.
John Held Jr. did not sell his priceless mailart, he received modest compensation for his labor in preserving and cataloguing it. Isn't his time worth something?</HTML>
A statement like that is a tautology, not a statement of fact. You cannot verify that all mailartists are for sale, while the statement could be disproved by the evidence of one mailartist who is not for sale. You can only mean that by your definition to be a mailartist is to be for sale---that you use the word ?mailartist? to point with at only those mailartists who would sell themselves. Hence the emptiness of your tautology, a sentence that spins its wheels because it gets no traction in events. A statement, to be meaningful, needs to overcome some resistance from facts, perhaps; it helps if a statement can be verified by testimony or documents; doubts arise if there is no way the statement could be false, that is, proved to be false, because then it may not be saying much. ?All mailartists are for sale.? ?But she is not for sale.? ?Well, I don?t call her a mailartist anyway.? For R. G. Collingwood, the meaning of a statement is as an answer to an investigative question. What would the question be to which the answer is, ?All mailartists are for sale?? You could probe your sentence in order to find out what your feelings are, and then offer a statement about them, on which you could become an expert. I am curious about your feelings about experiences which may have led to a statement that doesn?t express those feelings, or describe those experiences, but renders a meaningless accusation.
John Held Jr. did not sell his priceless mailart, he received modest compensation for his labor in preserving and cataloguing it. Isn't his time worth something?</HTML>
honoria
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 12, 2002 02:24PM |
<HTML>Yes, anyone who has seen John Held's archive has seen his meticulous organization and documentation and love for the work. It's worth a lot more than money for it to be preserved and cared for by an organization rich enough to provide mail artists access to it now and into the future.</HTML>
The Muse is Over-flowing! Andy
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 13, 2002 11:57AM |
<HTML>Dear Bill,
You can well imagine the disgust I felt when the LOVE stamp went on sale. Barbara Striesand would have bitched too! It just disproves the whole You Can't buy me Love theory! Who' is John Held Sr. did he destroy his son just because he couldn't sell him? I'm not an archivist but if I had anything that precious ( dare I say it) I would put it up for adoption. In fact many Gay adoption Agencies..well as Spike would say let the debate continue.
Hooker with a 37 cent heart</HTML>
You can well imagine the disgust I felt when the LOVE stamp went on sale. Barbara Striesand would have bitched too! It just disproves the whole You Can't buy me Love theory! Who' is John Held Sr. did he destroy his son just because he couldn't sell him? I'm not an archivist but if I had anything that precious ( dare I say it) I would put it up for adoption. In fact many Gay adoption Agencies..well as Spike would say let the debate continue.
Hooker with a 37 cent heart</HTML>
Bill Wilson
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 14, 2002 02:32AM |
<HTML>Tell me about the disgust: The LOVE stamp with the O out of kilter was a clear message that love was possible at strange and perhaps liquid angles, as its inventor, Robert Indiana (Robert Clark) practiced the love that dared not speak its name. So in response to his awkward social position he rewrote the book of LoVE, offering a reshaping and revision of the name of the idea, so that the anomalous word could be used to point with at the concept of LOVE, adapted to unspeakable practices and unnatural acts. See how stale that language sounds---like congealed vomit. LOVE with the misaligned O is a model for how to think about LOVE. I was delighted that it went out into the world as a stamp. Since Indiana had not copyrighted his design, he never received a penny for its use, though he later made some paintings and prints, as he later, in Vinal Haven, Maine, got persecuted for performing oral sex on male models, local fishermen so innocent that they could not have known what taking off their clothes in order to pose might lead to! Didn't they remember Marsden Hartley, who had befriended and beloved their fathers and uncles? Now that the love that dare not speak its name won't shut up, the stamp might seem ho-hum, yet I still think that the unconventionally lettered word opened the concept of love to unconventional thoughts and feelings. Why were you so bothered? I got plenty of mailart from people who seemed to have gotten that stamp to adhere with pride (to unpack the word "adhere," see Walt Whitman, poet and philosopher of adherences between two people and among citizens of a nation). Oh, on famous names, I lost a note I was writing, it evaporated, mentioning that the show in Oslo, to open in January 2003,was to be titled, Ray Johnson: name dropping. Now two people have written about Ray "fawning" on celebrities, while he was doing something radically different---offering celebrities a chance to come out from behind their fame and to respond like a person responding to a person (a few did: Shelley Duvall, Tommy Tunes). The show is now called, Ray Johnson: the name of the game. It contains much mailart (I have lent some of it), and is an opportunity to realize that Scandinavian museums hold archives of mailart (with Ken Friedman teaching in Scandanavia, the links should be strengthened and the museological interest enhanced). Someday I hope that Finland will wake up to a Finnish-American artist who, by getting people to relay paper and stuff to other people, constructed the network within which this message from me is one of the farther elaborations of his conception. Sensing the beauty of ordinary mail made Ray desire to conceive something with it, and what he conceived was a network of mailartists who might well appreciate that Robert Indiana so loved love that he conceived with it the LOVE, with the O at a slant. Then no one could deny him the name of the LOVE that was his. Name-dropping: I first knew Bob about 1957, and one time he made some money from a man who had a chicken-coop in his apartment... ...and believe me, the O of LOVE found a whole new angle that night! Here, Chicky-chicky! Here, Chicky-chicky. Note that the O of Indiana--love is as tensile, and as strong, as an egg! Bill
Bill</HTML>
Bill</HTML>
Right as Silky Rain
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 16, 2002 06:41AM |
<HTML>Match point! Bill! I saw a stupid Yehudin duck. We don't even know if and when Louie Sulivan' It's just a jewel box Christopher Lowel. The fur is still flying here tonight ladies and gentleman Did I miss Yom Kippur?
Code name daisy get it daisy? Her Love had a daisy or was it's his love?</HTML>
Code name daisy get it daisy? Her Love had a daisy or was it's his love?</HTML>
sci sam
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 13, 2002 08:37PM |
<HTML>"John Held Jr. did not sell his priceless mailart, he received modest compensation for his labor in preserving and cataloguing it. Isn't his time worth something?"
As far as I know his time was not up for sale, but rather his archive
had he kept the archive and simply sold the time it took to collect and maintain it, I'd be more inclined to agree with ya Bill
--sam</HTML>
As far as I know his time was not up for sale, but rather his archive
had he kept the archive and simply sold the time it took to collect and maintain it, I'd be more inclined to agree with ya Bill
--sam</HTML>
Bill Wilson
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 14, 2002 02:50AM |
<HTML>How do you separate the archive from the labor without which bags of mailart are opaque and inert litter? In appraisals of estates, uncatalogued papers are worthless. Cataloguing is labor, labor is worth money. Anyone who retrieves a document from a Held archive is also retrieving the labor that is bodied forth by the archive. Of course I was exaggerating, John sold his archive, but that is not a ready-made product. Maybe people could contribute thoughts as to what mailart is in relation to process and product---the relations between its aesthetic value and its possible status as a commodity. I wonder if people know that there is no public market for mailart---that expensive catalogues have been published with no sales. I am aware of a few private sales to private persons, each sui generis, and no one receiving a sum of money that would repay the person at a minimum wage for the labor even in just keeping the stuff in a bag in the closet for forty years, rather than ditching it (or generously relaying it to another person as a gift, short-circuiting commerce and preserving the spirit of art). I sense a lot of agitation on this question, and would appreciate an airing of thoughtful opinions. After all, if people can sell their eggs and their semen, their thinking might be extended to mailart. Since one of my daughters is pregnant thanks for the market in semen, I am not knocking anything, and look forward to twin granddaughters. Speaking of putting a money-value on processes, I do wonder if a young man is paid for the semen as a product, or for the process of producing it---the labor that may not be as much fun as it is work. Bill</HTML>
sci sam
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 14, 2002 10:05PM |
<HTML>Instead of replying within that framework, I'll say this
If John's labor is the act of organizing and producing the mailart into an archive,
then that act was not up on the auctioning block. The archive was - regardless of how or why it exists.
If by some statistical anomaly the information came to john in order, and he put no labor etc into the archive, it would still garner the same value.
that the mailart was formed into an archive through human labor is irrelevant and just a lucky example, really.
Sure, organized information is generally more valuable in cash terms than unorganized information. But this hardly has to do with the time or labor put forth by the organizer - your argument seems only to work in situations where an entity which can spend money organizes the information into a product.
This is something that has changed since the days of Marx.
If labor is an issue at all, which I question, then I'd say its the faith in john saying that he put in labor that holds the value, not the labor or time itself.
btw I care not on a moral level if people sell mailart
--sam</HTML>
If John's labor is the act of organizing and producing the mailart into an archive,
then that act was not up on the auctioning block. The archive was - regardless of how or why it exists.
If by some statistical anomaly the information came to john in order, and he put no labor etc into the archive, it would still garner the same value.
that the mailart was formed into an archive through human labor is irrelevant and just a lucky example, really.
Sure, organized information is generally more valuable in cash terms than unorganized information. But this hardly has to do with the time or labor put forth by the organizer - your argument seems only to work in situations where an entity which can spend money organizes the information into a product.
This is something that has changed since the days of Marx.
If labor is an issue at all, which I question, then I'd say its the faith in john saying that he put in labor that holds the value, not the labor or time itself.
btw I care not on a moral level if people sell mailart
--sam</HTML>
Bill Wilson
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 15, 2002 01:09AM |
<HTML>Sam: we have different notions of information. ?If by some statistical anomaly the information came to John in order,? you write, but that is impossible, for archives are not self-organizing, and someone must have the connoisseurship to judge the order. If monkeys happened to type Shakespeare?s ?As You Like It,? how would anyone know that they had? Who could judge? What would be the foundation of that judgment? If monkeys typing Romeo and Juliet by chance wrote, ?A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,? would that be as good a text as ?A rose by any other word would smell as sweet?? You say, if John ?put no labor etc. into the archive, it would still garner the same value.? But it wouldn?t be an archive, it would be miscellaneous stuff probably distributed probabilistically, although it would take educated judgment to judge even that, and such education is expensive. The archive is not information until the materials are informed by a form. Such a form cannot be by chance, and if it were, how would anyone decide that the order had occurred by chance? You write, ?that the mailart was formed into an archive through human labor is irrelevant and just a lucky example.? Who would recognize that it was an archive, and how? I don?t know about the science in Scientist Sam, and encourage you to comment from the perspective of Information Theory, and/or the concept of information in physics. In the realm of visual art, the price of a painting is constructed by the work and/or labor of the artist, the dealer, the truck-driver, the printer, the photographer, the laborers in the factory that produces canvas, and the workers who squeeze the paint into those little tubes. A painting is not simply hanging in the back hall of the castle humming with market value. A connoisseur must recognize it and a scholar must authenticate it. Those people are paid for their labor, and that labor goes into the price, though having been paid, they do not receive money from the sale. Injustice enters with the person who has ignorantly owned a Rubens which with no effort on that person?s part is sold for fifty plus millions of dollars, entirely unearned profit. Auction houses add a fee for their services to the price that is realized, making sure that they earn money on their work, part of which has been rigging markets against the buyers, who have supported the firms that have cheated them. No one ever said that the markets are fair. A man who encouraged a self-taught artist, bought the work, preserved and publicized the work, eventually sold it. He has been sued by distant relatives of the artist who gauge that some of the money belongs to them. But by what rights? What have they done to earn one cent? That man poured his energies into making the work known, that is, entering it as information in the field of visual art. When you write, ?Sure, organized information is generally more valuable in cast terms than unorganized information,? for me you underestimate what information is. To me at least, ?unorganized information? can be no information at all, since it awaits the expensive process of informing the material into the condition of being informative. Information is order, and order is information. You are separating a commodity from the labor that has constructed it as a commodity, which is precisely what our mystifying system wants you to do. A slab of bloody meat wrapped in plastic in the supermarket is not sold within view of the slaughterhouse, or if it is veal, in view of the veal pens. In this culture, selling separates a product from the blood, toil, sweat and tears that went into its production, so that the laborers can be forgotten about. A person eating beef is unlikely to enjoy thinking back through the processes of production toward the origins of the piece of beef, that slab of dead flesh cut from the corpse of an animal. However someone who has raised vegetables might well trace the vegetables back through the process toward the sensory pleasures of overturning soil and planting seeds, and taste in the vegetables the light of the sun on which they fed. In a brilliant novel by Ursula le Guin, The Dispossessed, the production of commodities is visible, as the place where one can select a free sweater is at the end of a system of production that one can?t help but see. Therefore the person who holds a sweater knows that he or she is holding a piece of the lives of the many people who gave something of themselves to the manufacture of the sweater. The result is that the people are not likely to waste goods, because to do so wastes human lives. In a story of tensions between political radicalism and aesthetic taste, Katherine Anne Porter, The Flowering Judas, writes about a woman who collects hand-made lace, knowing about the exploitation of the lace-makers, who can labor themselves into blindness. The hand-made lace is not like a handicraft, an object that shows signs of the free human work that went into it creatively. Speaking of labor, I wrote a long note which like so much stuff I lost when I went to move it here. But no one had asked me to do that work, and surely I was not paid for it. Fortunately Honoria is preparing to work on the concept of the gift, so the plot should thicken, but also clarify as it does so. The gifts of work in mail-art become the gift that keeps on giving, at least until the gift is sold, when it stagnates.</HTML>
sci sam
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 15, 2002 11:51AM |
<HTML>bah smoke and mirrors
its a matter of how many levels you're willing to go back in assigning value, not an ignorance of how the item was created.
this message did not come directly from my person to you. It went through a series of processes, created by and perhaps directed by humans, more often directed by nonhumans, from my computer to my isp to who knows where routed here and there, etc etc until it reaches you.
still, you appear to have no problem approaching the message as if I were speaking to you directly, and at the same time giving me a lesson on such things and implying ignorance of basic constructs on my part.
Perhaps we are both doing what this mystifying system wants us to do?
Or we cut to what holds the real value, the hamburger, in this case the message.</HTML>
its a matter of how many levels you're willing to go back in assigning value, not an ignorance of how the item was created.
this message did not come directly from my person to you. It went through a series of processes, created by and perhaps directed by humans, more often directed by nonhumans, from my computer to my isp to who knows where routed here and there, etc etc until it reaches you.
still, you appear to have no problem approaching the message as if I were speaking to you directly, and at the same time giving me a lesson on such things and implying ignorance of basic constructs on my part.
Perhaps we are both doing what this mystifying system wants us to do?
Or we cut to what holds the real value, the hamburger, in this case the message.</HTML>
Right as Silky Rain
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 17, 2002 08:10AM |
<HTML>Gee Bill,
You're beginning to sound like Space-man in the Aboitoir was that T.S.
I never could read more than two or three lines. Arthur Proofrock. Prudent man rule. Who was that guy who had all the meat shows and then it became so trendy and everywhere you went there were slivers of meet on the way and how ofter have we mislaid things/ Well parse all you want. I
think it's a hateful crime for anyone to be reduced to parsley. take the example of Bette Davis in All about Eve we didn't even see the waiter. There she was snapping Celery and who is going to put that up on the way and would sell it too begin with I got very paranoid when all the fruit and vegetables started showing up wearing numbers. There's still on the refer
door. My plants don't produce anything but pleasure. I didn't mean their there.
(Hic)</HTML>
You're beginning to sound like Space-man in the Aboitoir was that T.S.
I never could read more than two or three lines. Arthur Proofrock. Prudent man rule. Who was that guy who had all the meat shows and then it became so trendy and everywhere you went there were slivers of meet on the way and how ofter have we mislaid things/ Well parse all you want. I
think it's a hateful crime for anyone to be reduced to parsley. take the example of Bette Davis in All about Eve we didn't even see the waiter. There she was snapping Celery and who is going to put that up on the way and would sell it too begin with I got very paranoid when all the fruit and vegetables started showing up wearing numbers. There's still on the refer
door. My plants don't produce anything but pleasure. I didn't mean their there.
(Hic)</HTML>
Right as Silky Rain
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 17, 2002 08:14AM |
<HTML>Gee Bill,
You're beginning to sound like Space-man in the Aboitoir was that T.S.
I never could read more than two or three lines. Arthur Proofrock. Prudent man rule. Who was that guy who had all the meat shows and then it became so trendy and everywhere you went there were slivers of meet on the way and how ofter have we mislaid things/ Well parse all you want. I
think it's a hateful crime for anyone to be reduced to parsley. take the example of Bette Davis in All about Eve we didn't even see the waiter. There she was snapping Celery and who is going to put that up on the wall and who would sell it too begin with I got very paranoid when all the fruit and vegetables started showing up wearing numbers. There's still on the refer
door. My plants don't produce anything but pleasure. I didn't mean their there.
(Hic)</HTML>
You're beginning to sound like Space-man in the Aboitoir was that T.S.
I never could read more than two or three lines. Arthur Proofrock. Prudent man rule. Who was that guy who had all the meat shows and then it became so trendy and everywhere you went there were slivers of meet on the way and how ofter have we mislaid things/ Well parse all you want. I
think it's a hateful crime for anyone to be reduced to parsley. take the example of Bette Davis in All about Eve we didn't even see the waiter. There she was snapping Celery and who is going to put that up on the wall and who would sell it too begin with I got very paranoid when all the fruit and vegetables started showing up wearing numbers. There's still on the refer
door. My plants don't produce anything but pleasure. I didn't mean their there.
(Hic)</HTML>
Right as Silky Rain
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 17, 2002 08:14AM |
<HTML>Gee Bill,
You're beginning to sound like Space-man in the Aboitoir was that T.S.
I never could read more than two or three lines. Arthur Proofrock. Prudent man rule. Who was that guy who had all the meat shows and then it became so trendy and everywhere you went there were slivers of meet on the way and how ofter have we mislaid things/ Well parse all you want. I
think it's a hateful crime for anyone to be reduced to parsley. take the example of Bette Davis in All about Eve we didn't even see the waiter. There she was snapping Celery and who is going to put that up on the wall and who would sell it too begin with I got very paranoid when all the fruit and vegetables started showing up wearing numbers. There's still on the refer
door. My plants don't produce anything but pleasure. I didn't mean their there.
(Hic)</HTML>
You're beginning to sound like Space-man in the Aboitoir was that T.S.
I never could read more than two or three lines. Arthur Proofrock. Prudent man rule. Who was that guy who had all the meat shows and then it became so trendy and everywhere you went there were slivers of meet on the way and how ofter have we mislaid things/ Well parse all you want. I
think it's a hateful crime for anyone to be reduced to parsley. take the example of Bette Davis in All about Eve we didn't even see the waiter. There she was snapping Celery and who is going to put that up on the wall and who would sell it too begin with I got very paranoid when all the fruit and vegetables started showing up wearing numbers. There's still on the refer
door. My plants don't produce anything but pleasure. I didn't mean their there.
(Hic)</HTML>
The Muse is Over-flowing! Andy
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 16, 2002 06:55AM |
<HTML>Bill,
I forgot my Amo, Amat, and Amas, and Sci Sam probably did bite into the Whopper????????????????? I want another Charleston and when do we get to see the Oslo Address???????????????????????????????///////////////
Fl;ying hands
Oh you know broadlauns narrow minds? How are the Bastards?</HTML>
I forgot my Amo, Amat, and Amas, and Sci Sam probably did bite into the Whopper????????????????? I want another Charleston and when do we get to see the Oslo Address???????????????????????????????///////////////
Fl;ying hands
Oh you know broadlauns narrow minds? How are the Bastards?</HTML>
Bill Wilson
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 14, 2002 04:06PM |
<HTML>"As far as I know his time was not up for sale, but rather his archive."
At least since Karl Marx, a commodity has been an expression of the labor that went into its making; and the price set on a commodity has reflected the cost of labor. Of course not with diamonds and other uneconomical junk. Because labor and work are different in their meanings (see Hanna Arendt, The Human Condition, and Mary McCarthy's introduction), pricing of the work in the work of art doesn't match pricing a manufactured commodity produced by labor. I would like to hear from you on the difference between the archive and the time spent preserving and organizing the archive. Some terms to think with: "value-added," as in a "value-added" tax; surplus value; and profit (which is not the same as surplus value).
Societies maintain a kind of marriage-market to which young people are brought, or bring themselves. Have I quoted Shakespeare yet? Phoebe is a shepherdess who puts a metaphorical high price on herself, and won't marry a shepherd. Rosalind advises her: "Sell when you can, you are not for all markets." She, who is herself in the market, cuts through the pretensions of Phoebe (who deserves satire, because while she may know the price she puts on herself, she can't see the value of the shepherd who loves her), and reduces marriage to an economic arrangement. Analogies with art, and mailart, come to mind.--Bill</HTML>
At least since Karl Marx, a commodity has been an expression of the labor that went into its making; and the price set on a commodity has reflected the cost of labor. Of course not with diamonds and other uneconomical junk. Because labor and work are different in their meanings (see Hanna Arendt, The Human Condition, and Mary McCarthy's introduction), pricing of the work in the work of art doesn't match pricing a manufactured commodity produced by labor. I would like to hear from you on the difference between the archive and the time spent preserving and organizing the archive. Some terms to think with: "value-added," as in a "value-added" tax; surplus value; and profit (which is not the same as surplus value).
Societies maintain a kind of marriage-market to which young people are brought, or bring themselves. Have I quoted Shakespeare yet? Phoebe is a shepherdess who puts a metaphorical high price on herself, and won't marry a shepherd. Rosalind advises her: "Sell when you can, you are not for all markets." She, who is herself in the market, cuts through the pretensions of Phoebe (who deserves satire, because while she may know the price she puts on herself, she can't see the value of the shepherd who loves her), and reduces marriage to an economic arrangement. Analogies with art, and mailart, come to mind.--Bill</HTML>
Trippy
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 05, 2002 03:32AM |
dADa
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 14, 2002 07:16AM |
<HTML>If mailart truly means NO RULES, then where is it written that you can NOT sell mailart? Then that rule was OBVIOUSLY meant to be broken.
As for me, NO, I would not sell mailart... mine or anyone else's. Only because as a free exchange mailart is priceless... as a commodity most of it is worthless. But I have sold plenty of FINE art... mine AND lots of other artists. And I've given away TONS of FINE art... mine AND other artists.
However, for me to judge anyone else as to whether they sell mailart is hypocritical. I have sent out ADD & PASS projects that didn't get passed on. Is it any different whether you squirrel it away or sell it? The project died so it really doesn't matter if it was sold, eaten, archived, or stuffed in a vault.
What do we really owe each other as networkers?
As for the archivists... GOD BLESS 'EM! I sure don't have the time/energy to methodically catalogue and preserve the missives I receive. Nor do I get off on writing about the histories or analyzing the trends, etc. But I respect those who do.
But OH what fun I have! When mailart stops being fun to me and seems to be a chore I'll quit playing and go back to FINE art. There's still an ample market of people wanting to pay for it, collect it, preserve it and hope against hope that I die 5 minutes into my 15 minutes of fame so they can cash in.
keep on creating! (and we'll all have less time for whining and bitching and moaning about what some other mailartist does or doesn't do in the holy name of ART)
dADa
Aardvark Studios
POB 542913
Dallas, TX 75354-2913 USA</HTML>
As for me, NO, I would not sell mailart... mine or anyone else's. Only because as a free exchange mailart is priceless... as a commodity most of it is worthless. But I have sold plenty of FINE art... mine AND lots of other artists. And I've given away TONS of FINE art... mine AND other artists.
However, for me to judge anyone else as to whether they sell mailart is hypocritical. I have sent out ADD & PASS projects that didn't get passed on. Is it any different whether you squirrel it away or sell it? The project died so it really doesn't matter if it was sold, eaten, archived, or stuffed in a vault.
What do we really owe each other as networkers?
As for the archivists... GOD BLESS 'EM! I sure don't have the time/energy to methodically catalogue and preserve the missives I receive. Nor do I get off on writing about the histories or analyzing the trends, etc. But I respect those who do.
But OH what fun I have! When mailart stops being fun to me and seems to be a chore I'll quit playing and go back to FINE art. There's still an ample market of people wanting to pay for it, collect it, preserve it and hope against hope that I die 5 minutes into my 15 minutes of fame so they can cash in.
keep on creating! (and we'll all have less time for whining and bitching and moaning about what some other mailartist does or doesn't do in the holy name of ART)
dADa
Aardvark Studios
POB 542913
Dallas, TX 75354-2913 USA</HTML>
honoria
Re: Mail Artist sold on ebay? September 14, 2002 06:44PM |
<HTML>Once mail art has been freely exchanged the first time between mail artists maybe it's gone through it's free stage. From then on there are really no rules. I think mail art is strong enough to be collected and sold and still maintain vitality as a networking medium, in fact that is exactly what has happened in some instances. Some mail art, such as pieces by Ray Johnson, have attracted a monetary value to them due to a number of reasons such as his friendships with other key artists of pop added to the fact that he's a truly great artist. This valuing is going to happen due to forces mostly outside the network and I see it more as a positive than negative force. It happened to Fluxus and it will happen to mail art. Now that we are in the Interneted Phase of Correspondence Art (the IPCA) the price of paper art works is going to change, up or down or stay at "nothings."</HTML>
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