> contents / Guido Vermeulen - Belgium / interview by Sztuka Fabryka (2000) /

1. How and when did you become involved in Mail-Art?

Mail-Art is an international network of communication and artistic exchanges and collaboration. I joined this network at the end of 1993 on request of Simon Baudhuin who introduced me to mail art during a collective exhibition I had organized with some friends.

2. You mention you started with Mail-Art at the end of 1993. But I remember that I received some years before this date some issues from "Kitoko - jungle magazine" from you. What is the story behind this magazine? Did you know Mail-Art at the time?

We produced Kitoko Jungle Magazine between 1989 and 1994. It was an art magazine with 4 issues a year, based on the following ideas: mixing different media and mixing different cultures. It was a collaboration between writers, poets, painters, etchers and so on from all parts of Belgium (Flemish, Brussels and Walloon) and with international contributors coming from the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, the USA, China, Poland.

We did not know what Mail-Art was when we started the zine but it was based on the same principles: collaboration, fusion, open mindedness, networking, each contributor got a free copy, exchanges were made with other people making also magazines. So you could say we were operating inside a network of zine makers. After a few issues we also started organizing our own art exhibitions, showing the art of people involved around the zine in private homes. So it was an anti-gallery approach, developing home exhibitions and creating networks of support for local artists. Very soon Mail-artists found the way to Kitoko and started collaborating: Renee Bouws (The Netherlands), Rudiger Westphal (Germany) were amongst the early ones and soon we were in communication with Geert De Decker (through Renee Bouws), Alain Valet, Baudhuin Simon, Michael Graczyk and others. Baudhuin did a conference in 1993 during a summer exhibition and this speeded up the process. Kitiko did a Kings and Queen project and made an issue that was completely Mail-Art based. The envelope was the cover of the zine and inside the envelope were the contributions of the participants who made an edition of a contribution. It was based on the compilation idea. The step towards Mail-Art was for me a logical conclusion. It was the continuation of ideas developed in the zine but now in a complete international context of exchanges and participating at projects. Many collaborators (mainly in the Liege area) at the zine joined Mail-Art a few years later. So even today I still see and continue to work with old Kitoko members but in a new context, being Mail-Art.

3. Can you give us a short C.V. of your Mail-Art activities from the beginning till now?

I proposed and organized the following Mail-Art projects:

In 1993-1994:
"Signs and Stones" (A)

In 1995:
"Signs & Stones in the Moonlight" (B)
"Fight Povery and Sexual Slavery"
"Our favorite Songs"
"The education of boys and girls"
"Stardust in a dry Martini"
"Metro"

In 1996:
"Signs & Stones & Food" (C)
"Blue Water"
"The heart"
"Mozart"

In 1997:
"Artist Notebooks" (1)

In 1998:
"Signs & Stones & Trees" (D)
"Artist Notebooks" (2)

In 1999-2000:
"Signs & Stones & Snakes" (E): Mail-Art joining the mural project of the Brussels' Cureghem area, a collaboration with La Rosée, Manuel Escobar and the local town hall.
"Living in the mirror" Mail-Art introduced to (immigrant) children, allowing them to express their views on the way they see life in their own environment; a collaboration with Mail-artists Luc Fierens, Annina Van Sebroeck, Florence Libotte and The Foyer, a socio-cultural association working with immigrant youth; exchanges were made with other children groups all over the world; project funded by the present queen of Belgium, exhibition in the main post office in Brussels
"Artist Notebooks" (3)

Curator of the Italian Mail-Art project "SWALLOW" in the mountain village of Baiardo.

In 2001:
"Turtle Visions" (or Signs & Stones & Turtles) (F)
This year I also organized the collective exhibition:
"Artist Books & Notebooks" in the Lesezeichen bookshop, Brussels, 2001, followed by book workshops in Brussels and Liège; a collaboration with Bernd Reichert, Theo Breuer Lavona Sherarts, Jacq Ross, Samir El Nefily and others.

4. The Mail-Art projects you give a letter (A, B, ...) in your short C.V. are projects I know, but the others such as "Blue Water", "The heart", "Mozart" in 1996 I have missed. What kind of Mail-Art projects were this?

After the first Signs and Stones project I continued to explore Signs and Stones by adding other elements to it (the moon, food, trees, snakes, turtles). During a few years I've also proposed other themes (6 in one year, 4 in another). I did not produce zines for those themes like with the Signs and Stones ones but mailed a list of all participants to those themes at the end of each year. This is an approach I did not continue and will certainly not repeat. The enthusiasm for Mail-Art made me do this. I see this now as the mistake of a beginner! Simply mailing list of contributors as the conclusion of a project does not satisfy me anymore. For my ideas on documentations I refer to the epilogue in Signs & Stones & Trees and the debate in Kairan 4.

5. Yes, there is a large debate on the documentation or a catalogue of a Mail-Art project. What is your view on this?

I see a Mail-Art documentation as an independent work of art based on the proposed project or theme. Simply mailing a list of names and addresses I consider now as a waste of time and energy. These lists are perhaps important in the beginning you do Mail-Art but after a while they become very boring and unnecessary. So my idea is to take more time to produce a good doc. Only when I have enough time, energy and resources I am going to produce a doc and spread it around. This means that there can be a delay between the doc and the end of the project. But this is only my vision based on personal taste and growing. Other people can follow different roads and approaches based on their own path and experiences. I do not "believe", so I do not believe in models to follow neither.

6. What are your specific activities within Mail-Art?

Poetry & poetic prose, drawing & painting, collages (photo montage and papercuts) & objects, ceramics, etching, rubber stamps and artistamps, free calligraphy, visual poetry, artist books and notebooks, collaborative books, publishing zines and contributing to other zines, compilation boxes and so on.

7. Why do you do Mail-Art?

Interesting question !
Like I already explained my mail art activities started as a continuation of what a bunch of people tried to do with the Kitoko zine, that was already based on connecting different medium together from different artists in different cultures and countries.

So probably the main reason is this possibility of connection, of networking, which I see as an antidote against stupidity, against the brainwashing of the mind and perception that takes place in every society and culture. Mail art gives you an open view on art and on the world. It changed completely my perceptions on U.S. citizens for instance.

Another important reason is that thru' mail art I can SHARE my art (and views) with others. This sharing and scattering around of artistic expressions all over the globe is wonderful. It has a spiritual dimension for me. I do not want to keep my art, instead I like spreading it around as little seeds of flowers or plants. It gives me great joy and satisfaction. "Letting things go" (such as your own personal art) is healthy and allows the jump to higher level of consciousness. Others touch my soul at the same time I am reaching them. We grow together in "nothingness" (so not based on accumulation of possessions but just on the opposite movement towards the void). The "eternity" aspect of the network for me is not that " I want to achieve eternal fame as an artist " but that I embrace " eternal movement ", we continue to pass our energy from one to the other. The scattering around of all the tiny little pieces of my life are more important than the construction of a Magnus opus. This is also the reason why I oppose archiving.

8. Can you describe archiving Mail-Art also not as documenting the tiny little pieces of your life and others. Why are you so strong opposed against a well documented Mail-Art archive?

9. Not archiving Mail-Art means throwing away or passing on. Dont't you think that constantly passing on and adding to the original will make from Mail-Art one and the same soup. While each person his/her different artwork & activities makes Mail-Art so interesting.

My opposition against archiving is based on my personal growth as a mail artist and human being, on the reasons I've explained why I do mail art. But this vision does not mean I expect others to follow me. Let me quote from the epilogue in "Trees, walking in Balance" (the documentation of my project "Signs & Stones & Trees) :

"To avoid misunderstandings I also would like to say that I do not demand or expect that others follow my standards ! Everyone has the right to follow a proper path. The process is always more important than the result. We all have very different experiences and different levels of energy to cope with. Give people space to breathe their own air ... Through the notebook project I developed an attitude against archiving. For me the journey of mail art had to continue also after the end of a projects. Putting together a documentation including real mail & organize a redistribution of the sendings through a publication is one way of continuing the process of expanding energy in the universe. I did this a first time in the first notebook doc and am doing this on a broader scale with the Trees edition."

What I'm saying here is in fact that we all have different experiences, energies and paths. If you are happy to build a mail art archive, than you should do it. It is your road and your way of doing mail art. But it is not mine ! We could relate this with some tendencies in modern art and mail art. There is a tendency that is linked or based on the personal boost of the artist. I call this the P.R. approach of the artist or the artist as a P.R. machine. His utmost ambition is to become famous and to leave as many traces behind as possible linked with his own name and person. So he builds a huge collection of art work, or does art that continuously refers to the own name. In mail art you could call this the Cavellini approach. I do not think I have to explain this much more. Other examples of the PR strategy are "I am everywhere" (SR) or the actions proposed by Bruno Chiarlone in Italy. The people building archives are part of that same movement. In fact everything you do is part or very near that concept: Sztuka Fabryka is a pure PR stunt, the archive and now the encyclopedia are new stages in that strategy. Like I said, this is part of the history of modern today and in the past. It links you with others, doing or attempting the same. The archive dream links you with people like Guy Bleus, Artpool, John Held Jr and so on. If you feel good with that, if that fulfills you, than by all means continue with what you are doing.

My road is a different one, based on the continuation or expansion of energetic traveling and on "disappearance" in a way. I do not want to leave much behind. Spreading everything around is a way of achieving this. When we die we become energy. There is no reason for me why I cannot try to reach that energy while still alive. Art and spirituality are 2 brothers or sisters and also this approach is one you can recognize in modern art but not only in modern art because it goes back for instance to the funcion of art in native cultures, shamanism and so on. In mail art this approach is illustrated for instance by Mike Dyar's "Eat art" (which leads also to the disappearance of art) or by those who did conceive mail art as an utopic way to get rid of art and the artist as a "special class" of people. Mail art in its utopic dream wants that everyone becomes an artist, says that everyone is an artist, of course that means that art and the artist does not exist any more. It's the final annihilation of the artistic genius. Lot of conceptual art (based on what Duchamp opened) continues to explore that road too. It is not an accident that Beuys developed his grease pieces with the intend to disappear. Landscape artists like Marilyn Dammann (also very active in mail art) follow the same stream of energy by working with nature debris that is transformed by the earth and time elements, till they finally return to the earth. The process is more important than the result. Mail art is all about the process, the process of continuation, of communication, of passing on energy and time and love. This is more important than the actual art, that is changed, transformed, destroyed even in the process but what remains is the flux, the continuous stream of energy of which we become part. In that context youur remark on "the same soup" has no meaning. Yes, we are part of the same soup. The world is often in a bad state because people ignore the fact that we are part of the same soup.

The modern artist as a mirror of the modern world wants to outstand, to be different, to be unique. This only means he's concerned with his market value. Yes, we are different, we are unique because we are one. The constant tension between the unique and the unity is an interesting bow to travel on. Dammann's last project is called "we are made of the earth and the earth is made of us". This is another translation of the same ideas I developed here above. I propose we close this discussion here ...