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Bibliozine #49 (July 1996) Bibliozine, Part XII Bibliozine is an irregular review periodical published in connection with the editors' research on international networker culture. If you have materials that may be of interest to the project, please send them to the above address. Especially looking for books and articles on networking and it's various aspects: zines, mail art, e-mail art, fax, DIY culture, photocopy, performance, artist collectives, artistamps, rubber stamp art, fluxus, and other aspects of collaborative avant-garde cultures. The Zine Revolution I live in San Francisco, which is arguably the zine capital of the world, and I move in social circles encompassing it. Ashley Parker Owens, the editor of Global Mail, a highly respected (and rightly so) mail art zine, is my roommate. I review for Seth Friedman's Factsheet Five, and V. Vale, the publisher of Re-Search (now V-Search), who has just released his first of three volumes on the zine revolution, is a recent friend. I've always considered myself a mail artist, and Bibliozine just an enclosure, but I've been sucked into this vortex of zinedom, and it's difficult to pull loose. For the past several months, I've become infatuated with a publishing project by Sean Tejaratchi, editor of the zine Craphound, who began documenting the nefarious practices of Subliminal Tattoos editor Robert DuPree. It was an act of unmitigated courage, persistence, and uncanny organizational skills. Here then is my review for the forthcoming Factsheet Five review, and a brief reminder of V. Vale's latest effort. Tejaratchi, Sean. KOOL Man: The Amazing Story of Robert DuPree. Sean Tejaratchi, PO Box 40373, Portland, OR 97240. 109 pages. $5. When the history of zinedom in the nineties is written, this documentary account goes to the top of the list. For in it is a tale encapsulating the evolution of a medium. No longer operating in an enclosed community, zines have entered mainstream consciousness, and as such, are fair game for all manner of human foibles. The name of Robert DuPree should not be entirely unfamiliar to the readers of Factsheet Five. In 1994, he began publication of Subliminal Tattoos, "a national/international quarterly about comics, music, movies, media, and books/zines." The following year he began issuing a rougher looking sex zine called RUDE. Only he wasn't listed as the editor. It was supposedly written by four hip twenty-somethings engaged in a open relationship. Each told his or her own story, and the zine was designed involve the readership in an on-going dialogue. The voices of the hipsters sounded remarkably similar. Kathy Molloy, publisher of Snipehunt from Portland, Oregon, received a review copy in May 1995, and recognized it straight off, as her "bullshit radar started whipping around a mile a minute." In August, Screw editor, Rick Hall, with no prior knowledge of DuPree, revealed Rude as a product of the "fake-'zine phenomenon," and the editor as "resorting to this clumsy deceit to connect with young flesh." By the time Factsheet Five (No. 59) cryptically announced in its' non-review of RUDE that it was unable to "publicly comment of any of the work from Robert DuPree" at the risk of legal action, RUDE's authorship was an open secret on the Internet. I am not an impartial witness to these events. As the roommate of Ashley Parker Owens, the editor of Global Mail, I was on-hand to share her distress at receiving a letter from DuPree, concurrently sent to Seth Friedman, Bill Brent, and Chip Rowe, advising them to stop "this campaign of irrational hatred you've got going against RUDE - while you still can." And if they couldn't, failure to comply would result in legal action. "Everybody today is so confrontational, but in such a really weenie kind of way," DuPree has stated. Enter Sean Tejaratchi of Craphound. Already at odds with DuPree, because of his being threatened with legal action by DuPree over a copyright matter (which turned out to have no validity), and being slagged off in print over an unsubstantiated quote, Tejaratchi began to methodically document the correspondence of Dupree and his other victims(including R. Crumb, who is first ripped off by DuPree arctically in one issue of Subliminal Tattoos and then then personally attacked in the next). What has resulted from this investigation is one of the most compelling pieces of literature it has ever been my privilege to read, and has accomplished exactly what DuPree set out to do with RUDE, but couldn't-create a work of art. Dupree writes that, "My initial thought was 'Let's create a sort of novel reflecting the lives of this group of characters in the format of their own sex zine; while they're writing their sex zine, their REAL lives and conflicts reveal themselves...and eventually those conflicts are much more compelling than the sex zine itself." In fact, what happened is that while DuPree was writing the sex zine, and shaping events around it, his life was revealed. This is truth so raw and riveting that it sears the soul of all who bear witness. It's a tale of hidden motives, self-deception, conspiracy theory, sexual repression, and using the alternative scene for one's own gain. KOOL Man is both must read and a warning. Vale, V., ed. Zines! Vol 1. V/Search Publications, San Francisco, CA. 1996. 184 pages. $18.99. (Available at bookstores everywhere, or direct from V/Search Publications, 20 Romolo #B, San Francisco, CA 94133) V. Vale takes the marginal and turns it mainstream though his sensitivity to the subject and an ability to impart a sense of self-discovery. Through his previous publication efforts under the RE/Search label, he's introduced modern primitives, industrial culture, incredibly strange music, and angry women to Middle America. No stranger to the scene, Vale edited the seminal punk zine, Search and Destroy in the late seventies. In this latest effort, he interviews a number of zine editors, including Sean T. of Craphound. In addition to other interviews with the editors of Beer Frame, Meat Hook, X-Ray, Mystery Date, Fat Girl, Bunnyhop, and others, there is an informative "History of Zines," by Nico Ordway, a comprehensive directory to the field, and a section of "quotations", which convey the feel and concerns of the field. As I write this, Vale is over Joolee Peeslee's house interviewing her for Vol 2. Stay tuned. Bibliozine #50 (August 1996) Bibliozine is an irregular review periodical published in connection with the editors' research on international networker culture. If you have materials that may be of interest to the project, please send them to the above address. Especially looking for books and articles on networking and it's various aspects: zines, mail art, e-mail art, fax, DIY culture, photocopy, performance, artist collectives, artistamps, rubber stamp art, fluxus, and other aspects of collaborative avant-garde cultures. Kamperelic, Dobrica. Open World/Open Mind. Dedalus Publishing, Beograd, Yugoslavia. 1996. 160 pages. ($30 includes shipping. Send cash or International Money Order to: Dobrica Kamperelic, Ustanicka 152/VII-73, 11000 Beograd, Yugoslavia, Serbia). How ironic. Despite a financial and cultural embargo imposed on his country by the United Nations from 1992 to 1994, Dobrica Kamperelic continued to call his mail art infozine Open World. Begun in 1985, the zine continues to be a central source of information about mail art projects, shows, and events, in the international networking community. During the imposition of the cultural embargo, Kamperelic was a participant with other Serbian Artists in the performance and publishing activities centered around CAGE magazine, edited by Alexsandar Jovanovic. These artists placed themselves behind iron bars in a main public square in Beograd to bring the issue before the public. So Kamperelic is no utopian that hides his head in the sand. He knows too well the indignities and hardships of the world. Noting in his introduction that there are problems of overarmament, hyperpopulation, hunger, poverty, pollution, sickness, and national frustrations, nevertheless, Kamperelic maintains that there is a "universal spiritual culture," and that artists who "think global-act local," can rise above the problems to find solutions. This is Kamperelics' second book. In 1982 he wrote Umetnost Kao Komunikacija (Art as Communication), which dealt with similar material as in the present work, but suffered from publication in Serbo-Croatian without English translation. Fortunately, Open World is bilingual, as well as heavily illustrated. The present work differs also in that it is composed of an international cast of contributors, rather then the singular voice of Kamperelic in the former work. Essays appear by Ken Friedman, Scot McLeod, Debbie Jaffee, and myself from the United States; Shozo Shimamoto from Japan; Klaus Groh, Peter Kustermann, and Angela Pahler from Germany; Ruud Janssen from Holland, Clemente Padin from Uruguay; Gunther Ruch from Switzerland; Ruggero Maggi from Italy; and Katalin Ladik, Ilija Soskic, Miroljub Todorovic, Dr. Cedomir Vasic, Gordana Novakovic, Tanja Vugisi, Zoran Nastic, Dr. Marica Presic, and Bozidar Mandic from The Republic of Yugoslavia. In his introduction Kamperelic relates the circumstances of artists in Yugoslavia in their years of civil strive, their occupation "with the actual situation and possibilities of artistic collaboration in conditions of cultural isolation." The ways in which the "Eternal Network" responded, and failed to respond, are described. The spread of mail art into former unrepresented areas are also discussed, including Angela Pahler and Peter Kustermann's forays into Asia and Africa, and new participation from Cuba, and the countries appearing after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Mail art also spreads by way of new technologies - fax, e-mail, internet, and the World Wide Web. The book offers us an excellent overview of mail art networking in the nineties, and is just one more example of the mail artist cast as cultural historian. With contacts around the world, the mail artist is in a unique position to survey contemporary art activities on a global basis. Since it is often difficult for a non-participant to penetrate the complexities of this network, it has been left to the mail artist to chronicle his own art medium. Mail artists have been fortunate in having such colleagues as Mike Crane, Chuck Welch, Guy Bleus, Lutz Wohlrab, Dobrica Kamprelic, and others, write about the medium in the void of mainstream critical acceptance. Perhaps these views are at times too personal. Perhaps they favor the authors' personal correspondents. A more impartial survey of mail art will come at some future point. But now we are fortunate in having these first person accounts documented for future study. Kamperelic has also interviewed Shozo Shimamoto about the activities of the Gutai group, and Ken Friedman, who talks about his participation in Fluxus in the sixties and seventies. Both groups have influenced the mail art experience. That such a book can be published in Beograd so quickly after violent turmoil in the region, is a true testament to the determination of the author. His faith that mail art can encompass and reflect cultural circumstances in unwavering. Someday others will become aware of the power of mail art to shape the cultural geography of the world on a grassroots level. Until that time we are left with knowledgeable participants like Dobrica Kamperelic to leave his footprints for future cartographers. Bibliozine #51 (September 1996) Bibliozine is an irregular review periodical published in connection with the editors' research on international networker culture. If you have materials that may be of interest to the project, please send them to the above address. Especially looking for books and articles on networking and it's various aspects: zines, mail art, e-mail art, fax, DIY culture, photocopy, performance, artist collectives, artistamps, rubber stamp art, fluxus, and other aspects of collaborative avant-garde cultures. Two Spanish Mail Art Zines Spain has always had its share of active mail artists, but recently the country has exploded with unprecedented growth. Why this is, I'm not entirely sure. Certainly there has been a change in the cultural climate of Spain. With the death of Franco, a new openness occured, and government money has been put forth into the cultural nurturing of the country. Perhaps the language barrier has been a problem in the past. Cross fertilization with Latin American artists, such as Clemente Padin of Uruguay, Edgardo Vigo of Argentina, and the Cuban collective Banco de Idea Z may also be playing a part. Finally, the work of longtime Spanish mail artists Pere Sousa (Barcelona), Ibirico (Madrid), Xavier Mulet (Barcelona) Pedro Bericat (Zargogoza), Antonio Miro (Alcorn) and Antonio Gomez (Merida) have born fruit. Whatever the reasons, the appearance of two new Spanish mail art zines are sure to stimulate even more participation. Sousa, Pere. P. O. BOX. Edición Merz Mail, Apdo. 9326, 08080 Barcelona, Spain. Pere Sousa edits this photocopy digest sized zine drawing heavily on the tradition of the mail art info-zine pioneered by Klaus Groh's International Artistic Cooperation (I. A. C.) in the early seventies and continued by several contemporary zines, including Open World, published by the Yugoslavian artist Dobrica Kamperelic. The July issue (number 21) has 28 pages full of project information, zine listings, visual poetry, newspaper reprints, and essays, which have come to the attention of the editor in the course of his mail art activities. Some of the contributors include Crackerjack Kid (USA), Ladislao P. Györi (Argentina), Jorge Santiago Perednik (Argentina), Emilio Morandi (Italy), Nenad Bogdanovic (Yugoslavia), Luther Blissett (Italy), Clemente Padin (Uruguay), Pedro Juan Gutierre (Cuba), Creative Thing (USA), Igor Bärtelech (Yugoslavia) and John Bennett (USA). The article by Ladislao P. Györi concerns the First Buenos Aires Conference on Experimental Poetry (November 7-December 1, 1996), and important conference on visual poetry. There is also a listing of other Spanish zines, which should go far to establish an even stronger mail art awareness in the country. Another important element of the zine has been to translate the works of mail artists such as Guy Bleus and Vittore Baroni into Spanish, making their important texts more accessible to the Spanish mail art community. Ibirico, ed. Asociacion Mail Artistas Españoles (Spanish Mail-Art Association). AMAE, Aptdo. No. 47, 28921 Alcorcon (Madrid), Spain. The subtitle reads, "La Otra Perspectiva." And here it is - notes from the underground direct to the doorstep of our Spanish mail art friends. Each issue features news and notes on the mail art world, from a long list of correspondents, which editor Ibirico mentions in the beginning of the zine. This issue (June 96, Number 9) features the reprint of an attack on Clemente Padin, and mail art in general, by Laura Aga-Rossi, which appeared in the Italian magazine Bérénice. On a two-page spread there are mail art show listings from Japan, France, USA, England, Uzbekistan, Spain and Portugal. Other project and show notes are scattered throughout. Mark Bakula contributes an essay, "The Internet and Mailart," reprinted in it's original English. Other contributors include the visual poet Harry Burras (USA), Ruud Janssen (Holland), Fernando Aguiar (Spain), Marcello Diotallevi (Italy) and Shozo Shimamoto (Japan). Wherever possible, Spanish is used to expose the new art to the editor's fellow countryman. In each issue different members of the Asociacion are profiled. In this issue the featured artists are Antonio Perez-Cares F. from Santiago, Chile, and Corpá, from Toledo, Spain. Although similar in purpose and style to P. O. Box, AMAE provides additional support to the Spanish mail art community by profiling the membership. It's so great to see mail art taking off in a country that has been under represented for so long. Viva Arte Correo!
Bibliozine is an irregular review zine published in connection with the editors' research on international networker culture: zines, mail art, telemetic innovation, DIY culture, photocopy, performance, artist collectives, artistamps, rubber stamp art, fluxus, and other aspects of collaborative avant-garde cultures. Bibliozine began publication in June 1992 with the intention of supplementing the information contained in, Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography, released in 1991 by Scarecrow Press. I toyed with the idea of compiling a second large bibliography on networker culture, but after spending five years with the first book, found the task too daunting. I took a more manageable route, chipping away at the research each month with a new issue of Bibliozine. Now over fifty issues, Bibliozine has explored many facets of of the alternative art scene. The following is a checklist of the first fifty-one issues. Back numbers (each in a similar format to the present two-pages) are available for $5 apiece. Bibliozine Checklist (#1-51) 1. Artist Periodicals and Zines in the Modern Realism
Archive.
Bibliozine is an irregular review zine published in connection with the editors' research on international networker culture: zines, mail art, artist's books, telemetic innovation, DIY culture, photocopy, performance art, artist collectives, artistamps, rubber stamps, fluxus, other aspects of collaborative avant-garde cultures and the individuals associated with them. Two New Books on Eastern European Mail Art It's been five years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and enough time to measure the impact mail art had on the Eastern European alternative cultural scene. Vanguard artistic and social reform went underground, where their hibernated rumblings became audible as the revolutionary change in the former Soviet Block unraveled. Mail art played it's part, serving as a rare communication conduit with the outside world. With travel restricted, postal activity became a rare means of collaboration with the West. Mail art activities had it's rewards - and risks. Interference by the Stassi in East Germany is particularly well documented in the substantial new exhibition catalog published by the Staatliches Museum Schwerin. The second work reviewed is a monograph on Gyorgy Galantai of Budapest, Hungary. Active in the alternative art scene since the early seventies (Mail Art, Fluxus, Video, Performance, Archiving, etc.), Galantai established the Artpool Research Centre as an archive of Eastern European alternative artistic thought. The two works provide us with new understanding of the important part mail art played in overcoming repressive conditions through alternative communications. Staatliches Museum Schwerin. Osteuropa Mail Art im Internationalen Netszwerk. Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Germany. 1996. 318 pages. (Order from Kornelia Röder, Staatliches Museum, Alter Garten, Schwerin, Germany). Museum exhibitions of mail art are all too rare. Especially ones mounted by national museums. Some mail artists couldn't care less. Mail art is an alternative to the museum/gallery system, right? I maintain a controversial position toward this question. It's my opinion that mail art can function very well at a contemporary level, operating away from the mainstream, despite on-going surveys of previous activities in a museum and gallery settings. To bemoan surveys of mail art in museum/gallery settings serves no good purpose. Mail art has a history, to deny it sets back both the practitioners and audiences understanding of the medium. This show mounted by the State Museum in Schwerin, Germany, goes a long way to explain the importance of mail art in Eastern Europe during harsher political times. Géza Perneczky contributes an overview of the the situation, while Jiri Valoch (Czechoslovakia), Rea Nikonova (Soviet Union), Constantin Flondor (Romania), Piotr Rypson (Poland), Balint Szombathy (Yugoslavia), and Klaus Werner (East Germany), provide regional perspectives. In addition, there are profiles of two late mail artists, Robert Rehfeldt (East Germany) and Guillermo Deisler (Chile, Bulgaria, East Germany), providing excellent reasons for the important contributions they made. There is also a transcript of a panel discussion between East German mail artists Gerd Börner, Jürgen Gottschalk, Joseph W. Huber, Birger Jesch, Friedrich Winnes, Lutz Wohlrab, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, and curator Kornelia Röder, on the conditions of the alternative artist in a repressive society. The catalog concludes with essays by fifty-three contemporary mail artists from around the world writing about their involvement with Eastern European from 1970 through 1990. The work is illustrated throughout, and concludes with sections on chronology and history, archives, museums, collections, glossary of terms, and a bibliography. Following on the heels of the book, Mail Art Szene DDR 1975-1990 (see Bibliozine #31), which inspired the current exhibition, our understanding of mail art in Eastern Europe has been immeasurably enriched. Galántai, György, and Klaniczay, Julia. Lifeworks:1968-1993. Artpool and Enciklopédia Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary. 1996. 318 pages. ($45+$5 surface mail. Order from Enciklopédia Kiadó, H-1113 Budapest, Bocskai út 31) One of the most influential Eastern European artists of the past thirty years, György Galántai, has bravely kept alive a strong Hungarian avant-garde heritage under the weight of Communism. He did this not only in the content of his own works, but as acting as a center for information on other such artists with the establishment of the Artpool Art Center, which he established with his wife Julia Klaniczay. Well known as a central focus of mail art activity in the region, this retrospective of Galántai's entire oeuvre exposes his other artistic actions, especially in the fields of sculpture and performance. But even his sculptural works recall the intermedia influences of the Fluxus movement. In his introduction Géza Perneczky writes that, "It is Galántai's mail-art and other marginal art forms that link him to the Fluxus heritage. While he never entirely turned his back on (primarily political) pathos and exhibitionism, he tried to get around them or conceal their direct forms. His resistance came to take the form of Jokes and humor in the spirit of Fluxus and the spirit of the times, and because marginality and the inter-medial art forms were the next logical steps of the avant-garde...The tow things that Galántai never did try to hide was the didactic intent in his works-the fact that he wanted to both provoke and educate his public and his position of opposition to the 'authorities.' Hence the 'spirit' of his works, and his linguistic provocations, like his call for communication..." I am always brought back to Galántai's action with Julia Klaniczay on the occasion of G. A. Cavellini's visit to Budapest in 1982. After the Italian artist wrote his self-history upon their white clothing, they went to Hero's Square in Budapest, the seat of displays of "national pomp and political power." Once there they mimicked the stance of the statue designed by Vera Muhina, which had come to symbolize the Soviet presence in Hungary. Instead of holding aloft the hammer and sickle, they raised up a book. Above all, Galántai's drive is always for increased communication. Now this present text should do much to increase knowledge about this important artist.
Bibliozine is an irregular review zine published in connection with the editors' research on international networker culture: zines, mail art, artist's books, telemetic innovation, DIY culture, photocopy, performance art, artist collectives, artistamps, rubber stamps, fluxus, other aspects of collaborative avant-garde cultures and the individuals associated with them. Arman's Cachets: An Annotated Bibliography. In preparation for a major essay on the rubber stamp works of Arman produced in the mid to late fifties, I have been researching not only the artist's life and works, but also two artists who influenced his breakthrough period: Kurt Schwitters and H. N. Werkman. The Cachets, as Arman began calling his rubber stamp works, are acknowledged by most critics to inform the rest of Arman's later works, including the Allures and Accumulations. No in-depth study of the Cachets exist, however, with information on them appearing here and there in the many books and articles on Arman. This is an attempt to bring the published information on the Cachets together in preparation for a longer study, culminating in an exhibition at The Stamp Art Gallery in March-April 1997.
Notable for essays by Arman and Pierre Restany, which appear to be written expressly for the exhibition at the Lund Konsthall. No Cachets are reproduced. Cabanne, Pierre. Arman. Éditions de la Différence, Paris, France. 1993. 151 pages. Essay in French mentions the period of the Cachets, the influence of Schwitters and Werkman, and some interesting details (specific textual rubber stamps Arman used in the Cachets) not found in other works. Reproduces Grand Cachet (1957) in color. Notable for the numerous quality color reproductions of selected Accumulations. Elderfield, John. Kurt Schwitters. Thames and Hudson, London, England. 1985. 424 pages. In 1954 Arman saw the work of the German Merz artist
Kurt Schwitters at the Berggrüen Gallery in Paris. Several of Schwitter's
"Rubber Stamp Drawings" were exhibited, launching Arman on
an investigation of the medium, which occupied him for the next five
years. This comprehensive work by Elderfield on the artist's life and
work makes clear that Schwitter's rubber stamp works were not a marginal
exercise, but were created at the birth of his conceptualization of
Merz and were central to the Merz vision of incidental scraps of popular
culture revealing eternal truths. Schwitters rubber stamp usage lasted
from 1918 to 1923, the height of Schwitters beginning creativity. Schwitters
work also lead Arman to his Accumulations and cannot be denied as a
major influence on Arman's entire oeuvre.
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