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Response to "Trends in Mail Art..." by K. Frank Jensen in NUMERO 5, 1999, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

"Because the things are as they are, they will not remain like such" Berthold Brecht

From the times of the attack to mail-art of the Italian inistas ("Protomanifiesto" of Laura Aga-Rossi in BERENICE, nº. 8-9, 1995, pp 245-62, Pescara, Italy), in which, among other things, we can read that " To make Mail Art today is to be ignorant and reactionary " and for whom, practicing the Mail Art, "is not an horizon of expectations the one that you will reach, but an horizon of shit", we have not found anything as remarkable in relation to the use of our art as the note of Frank Jensen, " Trends in Mail Art... " in NUMERO magazine nº 5, pp 8-11.

It is impossible not to agree with Jensen in its prediction: mail-art will change. In fact, after 30 years of use, it has changed enough. Even, nowadays, mail art has survived to the appearance of new mass media discovered by the technologies applied to the field of the communication, mainly, the fax and the electronic mail, assuming forms adapted to the new supports. Nevertheless, there is a limit for the evolution of the things. The water can continue being water between the 100 and the 0 degrees; outside those limits it will be called vapour and ice respectively. The change can take place because the characteristics, as much morphologic as functional, of the water will be permuted by others. With the mail-art it will happen the same: if mail art maintains its typical characteristics, it will continue being mail art. If, in the future, these characteristics change, we must to call this with another name, because it will be another thing, that is to say, it will stop being mail art.

Jensen, to begin, attacks the definition of mail art (The concept of mail art is not so defined any more, as some established mail artists want us to believe....). If the "mail art is not so defined", how Mr. Jensen knows that he is doing mail art? Know it he by intuition? It's dictated to him by a divine voice? Without a doubt, he knows that it is mail art because it keep to the rules, to its nature. Which are these rules? The most important characteristic of the mail art, is to privilege the communication, that is to say, establishing the dialogue without considering very much the information, aesthetic, referential or whatever kind it may be. The function which predominates in the messages spread through the mail art is the factual one, that is to say, the relation with "the other" that would favor the application of the remaining functions of the language (referential, poetic, etc., according to the nomenclature of Jakobson). For that reason the mail art is considered a luck of sub-art (or one indefinable nothing) by the critics, because the aesthetic preoccupations usually are not determinants from the optics of mean or the support. For that reason we not accept that a jury of work's selection exists in the mail art projects. From the point of view of the art, there are not doubts about the fact that works must be "artistic ". If the functionality we wished for our works was exclusively artistic, we wouldn't send them by postal or electronic mail (we would contract a suitable insurance at least).

In our concept we even suffer the confusion or false dichotomy art/communication. The artistic product is, first of all, a product of communication and, therefore, indissoluble part of the social production. On the other hand, as the rest of the products that the man creates, it converts in assistant of that production (favoring or making difficult its processes). In some contexts it will prevail his " artistic " nature (museums, galleries, etc.), in others, his nature of communication instrument. But, both facets are inseparable. By the same reason, as a product, like any other merchandise, they put a price to him (that almost never coincide with its value) thus is not unthinkable that, in a future, the mail art works could be commercialized; but, as assistant of that production, as communication, who can put price to him? Who would put a price to him to a "Hello, I am here". That explains the lack of concern by "aesthetics" in mail art works (although not in all the cases) and the anguish for assure the reception of the message (because the important thing is the communication).

Let us listen what Jensen says: "Still I do not understand why those people insist to call themselves artists, since art is not their business". Let us see how to arrive at this: the first, art is first of all art and, therefore, it must have a high aesthetic value that, second, will establish a value made specific in a price that will be regulated by the market of art transactions that will make possible, third, that people who practice such activity could be called "artists". Those people who not keep to this practice, according to the own Jensen, can be called "networkers" if they want it, but not artists. Nevertheless, Jensen, worried to insert mail art in the commercial circuits, pleads, among other things, by the material character of the work ("one piece of mail art in the hand is better than ten on the net"), that is to say, you can put a price to the material work but not to a pile of electrons floating in the space; although both can have the same objective, the communication. The other front that Jensen attacks is the lack of artistic nature, that is to say, he emphasize the criterion of quality of the work in decline of the amount of correspondents. "Who keep watch at the guardians?" as the classic Roman said. Indeed the one that can value and determine the aesthetic value of the work, that is to say, the critic, the one that knows, the one that puts the price to the things, the merchant, the chosen by the Gods...

But the objections of Jensen do not stop here: he also attacks the multitudinal character of the mail art and the network. What is the solution to the mail art lack of "artistic value"? To form exclusive groups or particular networks, penpal clubs or national teams, going against the internationalist character of mail art, for which there are no borders, neither limits of property nor chapels. This is completed with the exhibitions by personal invitations that Jensen proposes to assure the minimum artistic level in the shows. That is to say, not to make multitudinal calls to the network of mailartists but to summon to a limited number selected by the good taste of the organizer. Why not to invite only to those whom Jensen calls "established mailartists "? This is to return to 60s., to the experiences of the first participants in mail art, who invited their friends until the classic tacit norms, and, mainly, the diffusion of the addresses of the artists, prevailed. Let us agree that these groups really exist determined by the spiritual affinity, or political, or aesthetic or whatever but, in all the cases, they settle down naturally, without the co governing hand of super equipped or demigods. Because the same reason, Jensen, is worried about not to receive catalogues of the exhibitions of mail art in which he participates. How can he make his curriculum without the necessary documentation?

The note of Jensen is not either alien to the natural evolution of the mail art, that is common, on the other hand, to all social, political or cultural institutions. They born, they are developed, they reached a maximum point, they decay and they died. Thus, we could attended that transit that has taken the mail art from its initial stage to the present point, in which the well-known institutionalization is doing damage. Thus, it is not difficult to predict that mail art will exhaust its cycle and will be integrated, sooner or later, to the list of currents or artistic forms of expression of XX century. Almost all the recognized biennials and cultural events have made their Mail Art Show, like the most important Postal Institutions of the world; the Universities and Schools of Art wich have made exhibitions of mail art are innumerable, and this include specialized Chairs and the creation of special Departments for its study (there are doctoral theses with the subject of art mail). Also, there are a lot of private and public Institutions wich have made some forays in the organization of mail art exhibitions, favoring themselves with the free charges, the easy diffusion and the new development that mail art exert compared to the old forms of Classical Art. But, despite the benefit that those institutions could obtain taking advantage of the rich vein of mail art, the own network also has been favored with the expansion of the number of participants and with the diffusion of its humanist concepts, opposed to all form of oppression or control of the freedom.

I have not responded to Jensen arguments involving political subjects and others of personal nature for not to make possible the ideological disqualification. On the other hand, we did not accept the absolute terms. It is clear that our dear tacit norms (nonreturn, nonsale, not jury, documentation to all, etc.) will change with time but not to the point of which we leave our principle, the " Eternal Network " of Robert Filliou, the utopian model of the perpetual expansion of the communication to all the humanity.

Clemente Padín Montevideo, Uruguay, May, 1999
Copyright © Clemente Padin - clepadin@adinet.com.uy