Hi Artists.
In my opinion Ray is no father of mailart.

I studied modern fine art near my job for some years.
From 1850 to 1998 - so I met his works - stored here in Hamburg
too and his Idea and his Life.

Ray was a poor "want - to - be - fluxus- artist" in his time , frustrated
and he never real started some international flux x-changing art.

Just some typically American Dream he dreamed.

Instead of this a lot of Artists from Europe, Asia , Russia and so on
just lived this kind of interchange of art and ideas.
He saw his own spamm and became frustrated.

So the network spreading from all around the world arised.

First called Mailart - later Networking.

Ray jumped from the bridge in the harbour ?cause he recocnized that
his Idea had been wonderful, but others had this too before -
others started the www of art - and he died unknkown.

Someone here that studied art and arthistory of fine arts too to
discuss with about???

Merlin

tell me your thoughts about Ryosuke Cohen or .......


You are not talking?about but still sharreactors about
Mailart......... and so on.

I know very well personally too.....

Merlin -
the Kestrel

Dear Merlin!

You have specific and interesting vision of mail art and Ray Johnson. May be, it's good idea to write article, where You'll support Your strong arguments? And then You'll receive very interesting discussion.

With best wishes,
Juri

Yes I will discuss this at next DNC at Minden Germoney.
Thank you for your answer.

Merlin

OK!

It seems to me, I'll be there - now I'm deciding problem of visa.

With best wishes,
Juri

Hi Gik - maybe we can help you by visa for inviting you personally officionally for a friend? What exactly is the Problem to get any visa?
(Mailartists are never really free).

Try to contact Peter Netmail (K?stermann) for this.
Peter knows more about this official terms than me and
got excellent international Contacts.

Your
Merlin

Dear Merlin!

Thank you very much! May be, it will be useful. Now I need to go to Agency near German Embassy to know exact situation (Peter Netmail invited me, but he has no possibility to make formal invitation (paper war)). I'll e-mail You, if I'll need help.

With best wishes,
Juri

The History of mail art seems an illusive search and turns around many corners and off-road alleys. Ray Johnson is an important figure, and does not need to be denigrated, (Merlin, take note!) but maybe the epitaph as "Father" of mail art is a bit excessive and a more thorough history needs to be disseminated to the "Network" and beyond to the greater public at large.

This is in response to the post:

Catherine Hicks Stephen Perkins
Raise Cotillion Carte Blanche 11-21-03 03:20

Dawn Amato

Dear Dawn!

As I know, Ray himself has negative relation to the term "father of mail art" - see his reaction in the interview with Ray by Henri Martin from 1984 (lays free in the Internet). So... here is no problem!

With best wishes,
Juri

And according to the article by Clemente Padin over at the Operation Mankind Project, Ray Johnson was instrumental in creating the "Add and Passs" or "Add, Alter and Return" gemre of Mail Art which is no small deal. Here is excerpt from that article:

The projects "Add and Pass" or "Add, Alter and Return" are in the root of mail art. One of the creators of the movement of mail art in the mid sixties, the FLUXUS artist (from New York), Ray Johnson, used to send unfinished paper sheets with drawings and graphic works to his friends. He asked them to complete those paper sheets and then send them to "this or that" Gallery, where they would be exhibited on a certain date.
Johnson was not only creating a new gender of mail art, like postcards or artist-stamps (creative and apocryphal post stamps), but he was also setting the basis of a new form of enjoying and creating arts: the interactivity. It is the possibility of sharing with others the magic and the miracle of inventing, or "taking out of the gallery" a new object, an opus, a real creation with expression capacity, born of nothing.

(See full article at:

[mankind.crosses.net]

dawn Amato

Dear Dawn!

Yes, you are right. Padin is good researcher, but this text has at least one mistake:"the FLUXUS artist (from New York), Ray Johnson" - he was never member of Fluxus, and he insisted on this in other texts-interviews. And I'm not sure that he created artist postcards (it was matter of artists from the end of XIXc.) and artistamps (besides Schwesig's stamps fom 1940s, some other real Fluxus members created artistamps used in the art context: "YAMFLAG", etc. in 1960s; and Johnson didn't like artistamps very much (as I know, he made one only) - see his interview by Martin).

With best wishes,
Juri

Yes this is all right.

Ray had not raelly something to do with Fluxus. in his world and time.
He was an mailartist like thousand others. Even he acted in this way....
Time was ready to do this for every artists.

Ideas, conceptions and actions - happened arised all around the world this time.

About Fluxus and America - read George Maciunas or ask Ben Vautier.
I think this was one root of mailart in America.


Is Ben still alive? once at last he sent one invitation to mailartists about
nothing - really the "Nothing-Projekt" - send me nothing... and so on...
even he told in his invitation "I will send nothing back" - really cool -
he got mail like a flood. I sent him nothing back and laughed three
weeks about his project!!!! While seeing his life on TV.

So I think it is nonsense to discuss about WHO WHERE started
mailart.... or FLUXUS

I think - by my humble opinion - it started in mail while sending art.

nothing more

some people met and stayed in this first worldwide free network.

And just this was the point it started.


Naturally this system is NO system using ANY systems instead of
SYSTEMS against SYSTEMS to x-change art and souls and so on....

Read Ruggero Maggi to understand this----

Who is the most famous FLUXUS artist and Mailartist I know today?
Well this is Ryosuke Cohen.

Absolutely strong Person in Heart, Mind and Soul - that means
ART.

If you want ask him about Mailart and Fluxus - he is just living
exactly this.


noone founded fluxus nor mailart.
noone will kill it.

noone is able to trap ideas.

Ideas fluxing around the world with mail and / or....

Die Gedanken sind Frei!
Kunst findet im Kopf statt!

Thoughts are free!
Art happens in your Brain!
Mailarthistory is not official fine art history.
it happens.

No Politician no Terrorist, no Sherrif, no Person can stop it.

Thoughts are Free, Art are paintet thougts.

Art is free forever.

Flux and REflux - we are FISHES in the Net!!!

Merlin - A LITTLE KESTREL SOMETIMES.
allowed to send oilpaintings out near some
ideas concepts and.....

No restrictions are given in this global x-change.
Only one. Humanity - try to understand eachothers.
Therefore I deleted Rainrien just here in my area.

Sorry about - but I am not allowed to watch children
destroying others souls while playing with.

Merlin

Merlin wrote:
> He was an mailartist like thousand others. Even he acted in
> this way....

But he started New York Correspondence School in the middle 50s?

>
> About Fluxus and America - read George Maciunas or ask Ben
> Vautier.
> I think this was one root of mailart in America.
>

I'm totally agree with this.

>
> So I think it is nonsense to discuss about WHO WHERE started
> mailart.... or FLUXUS

It seems to me, it's interesting for mail artists to know it and to discuss it.

>
> I think - by my humble opinion - it started in mail while
> sending art.

May be. It's only one side. What about network of artists?

With best wishes,
Juri

You would engender a great argument if you were to take your idea that no one started Fluxus. See Jon Hendricks and the Fluxus Codex. Or if you can get a copy of the article I wrote for the Lund Art Journal, from Lund, Sweden (in English), edited by Jean Sellem, in 1991, I think. Article is entitled: Fluxus in America.

As for Ray Johnson and mail art, clearly he was the first to exploit the mail in a way that no other artist had before. Mail art was an aspect of his collage works, and while I think he will be known as the founder of the NYCS, it is his collage work that has greater influence. I agree he never thought of himself, not that he ever expressed to me, as the "father" of mail art. His was a kind of correspondence/correspondance art and not the sort of krap you see today with people sending out photocopies of their aethetic theories or plain old nonsense. But to each his own, eh, Merlin? The simple fact that you are arguing about Ray Johnson as the one who launched mail art says plenty. From what I know, Ray exhibited at least once with Fluxus (Maciunas) and was loosely associated with most of the Fluxus people including Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, A.M. Fine and many others. He was not a joiner. You should really contact Bill Wilson about this whole subject. See the Yahoo Mail Art message board for this... leave him a message and ask him directly.

Happy New Year. -- Matthew Rose

Hello everyone out there,

After just reading your comments on Ray Johnson, I am surprised and shocked at the narrowmindedness of Merlin's view. Whether Ray Johnson was the father of Mail Art is something which he would not have been thinking about. Do you really think he was the kind of person who wanted to be a first in what he was doing?. I don't think so. Stop putting lables on people, you will never know what he was thinking as you are not HIM!.