“Canto IIVMM – Andrew Jackson and the Bank War” by Dark wall – visual poetry, asemic poetry. concrete poetry

Concrete poetry by Dark wall – concrete poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

MinXus Mail Bag: Visual poetry by Luc Fierens (Weerde, Belgium)

Mail-art by Luc Fierens (Weerde, Belgium)

We are absolutely thrilled to have received this visual poem by Luc Fierens, as we have been fans of his visual poetry and collage art for some time. Luc Fierens is an innovator in the visual-textual area, and we hope you will explore the links to his work in this blog. We place him among our favourite artists who are doing such extraordinary work in Belgium. This includes Thierry Tillier, Little Shiva, Benoit Piret and Guido Vermeulen.

Here is a link to Luc Fierens’ blog where you can see many examples of his work:

http://lucfierens.tumblr.com/

In this postcard-size piece, Luc Fierens focuses on the textual by constructing a poem from language appropriated from the mass media. Indeed, much of his work seeks to reveal and destabilize systems of power and control. We think an excerpt from his artist’s statement that appears in the online publication Kolaj is particularly useful in understanding the concepts that inform his work:

“As artist, I [Luc Fierens] started as poet, an experimental poet influenced by the Belgian avant-garde (Van Ostayen). But after a while I turned to visual poetry. Now, since the nineties, I dedicate myself to my re-poesia visiva. Poesia Visiva was an Italian movement of visual poetry that was known in the 60s-70s to be very political and anti-POP because of its activity of semiological guerrilla (cfr Miccini/U.Eco). I don’t think I repeat it, but I think it is still CONTEMPORARY. The majority of today’s political events have a strong likeness with the sixties. The protest, the social changes, the crisis (also in the 80s), the power of the mass media… only the names of the multinationals changed, but the rich are richer and poor are poorer. Therefore, the poet must try to change the world. This utopian vision is part of mine to conceive/to make art, as provocation through means of collage. Visual poetry goes beyond the collage. Therefore, visual poetry is an instrument/my way of art/life to attack the truth (by detournement). In my visual poems, I use the written word. The word interrogates the images and makes the layers visible. Of signs to read or to see.”

We also like Luc Fierens’ photostream at flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23777629@N05/

The “Secret Archives” exhibition featuring Luc Fierens, Thierry Tillier and Benoit Piret is also well worth some exploration:

http://benoitpiret.canalblog.com/archives/2012/03/18/23790148.html

Many thanks to Luc Fierens! We look forward to more exchanges.

Poop & Pee Dog Copyright Violation Ceremony documentation by tentatively a. convenience

(One of the most notorious events in the history of Neoism – Baltimore, Maryland. We found this documentation by tentatively a. convenience, who staged the event. If this can be believed, it clarifies the facts of what took place.)

57. Poop & Pee Dog Copyright Violation Ceremony

• 14BX Sub-Par/Con (The 3rd Church & Foundation of the Subgenius Convention), a Baltimore Train Tunnel, us@
• September 18, 1983, very early morning
• A wire was stretched across the train tunnel thru an eye hook & 2 partially truncated & mummified dog corpses that I’d found there that had apparently been run over by trains were hung from the wire on either side of the tracks. A metal sheet with instructions for using Black & Decker power tools with a No Copyright symbol spray-painted on it was suspended between the dogs. The dogs were painted white with the words “Poop” painted on 1 of them & “Pee” painted on the other & glowing cyalume light sticks were placed between their rear legs. The walls of the tunnel were spray-painted with non-intersecting (except for, perhaps, the occasional accident) squiggly lines which I associated somehow with native Australian dreamtime culture. A strobe light flashed, someone made the dogs dance by tugging on the wire, & Ron Cummings manipulated & played tapes that he’d made of him beating on the dead dogs. I was naked except for my shoes & socks & I had white squiggly lines painted on me. I danced & gyrated wildly & beat the dogs & the thunder sheet with a club. The dogs were on fire & exuded what one might call a “foul” smell. I had been entrusted with the sacred head of Arnold Palmer by a representative of the Bloody Head Launcher’s Society which I had set on fire & which I was also beating about the tunnel. The title of this ceremony was a reference to “Pee-Dog” comix by Jay Condum & Gary Panter & “Poop-Dog” comix (which was a friendly rip-off of “Pee-Dog”) by the Reverends Ivan Stang & Sterno Keckhaver. Eventually a large quantity of police came (from the railroad cops, the city police, & the nearby federal reserve bank guards) because 1 of the attendees reported having witnessed something “horrible & immoral” & I was arrested. When the “news” found out about this (it was done partially as a publicity stunt anyway) they “reported” that I was a “Cult Leader” who was “praying to the dogs” etc. Very little attempt was made to actually find out who I really was or what I actually was doing & when I was interviewed what I actually had to say was considered too weird to quote. I was quoted both in the newspapers & on tv as saying things that I hadn’t said by people who hadn’t even been present at the time when I’d supposedly said them. The cop who’d arrested me bought a photo of this ceremony from me. Another cop who’d allegedly been on the “force” for 26 years was quoted as saying in the newspapers “I’d rather run up against a man with a gun than a situation like that!” The beat goes on..

“flash ninxus” – asemic concrete visual poem by Dark wall

MinXus Mail Bag: Moan Lisa looks back to old staples – Neoism & Punk(ture) (Iowa City, Iowa, USA)

Mail-art by Moan Lisa (Iowa City, Iowa, USA)

The ever-changing and evolving Moan Lisa stepped out of a recent Fluxus preoccupation briefly with this Neoist-inspired piece we were thrilled to receive. Neoism in the 8os and 90s took an inherently anti-art stance and was aligned with the Punk and industrial music scenes with which it was contemporary. This musical comparison, hopefully, illuminates Moan Lisa’s mail-art with its menacing (this piece can cut you if you are not careful) metal teeth and obsessive repetition. Here is the full, large postcard-size piece:

Neoism is still a presence in the mail-art network, from which it sprang along with similarly aligned efforts such as the Church of the Subgenius. Generally it is referred to as “post-neo” these days. For instance, visual poet Jim Leftwich (Virginia, USA) is a proponent of Post-NeoAbsurdism, which is producing, in our estimation, fabulous work on many fronts including performance art but far removed from the days when tentatively a. convenience’s dead animal rituals scared even the police in Baltimore.

This is a link to the Post-Neo Absurdist Anti-Collective:

http://postneoabsurdism.blogspot.com/

Here is the reverse side of Moan Lisa’s piece which is even more minimalist:

And a close-in on the Neo moniker:

Moan Lisa has a definite skill for locating radical movements of the past (via the Eternal Network), locating their concepts and approaches, and updating them. Ultimately, Moan Lisa synthesizes all these influences into something that is uniquely Moan Lisa.

As ever, many thanks to Moan Lisa!

MinXus Mail Out: “The Red & the Black” (asemic fiction) to E – Ambassador of Utopia (Guivry, France)

MinXus Mail Bag: A D-Komposed Trashbook from WA Rodgers (Takoma Park, Maryland, USA)

Mail-art by WA Rodgers (Takoma Park, Maryland, USA)

WA Rodgers is a newcomer to the Eternal Network, and we offer her a warm welcome. We have seen scans of her work posted at the EUOMA and find it highly distinctive and fascinatingly cryptic in both word and image.

WA Rodgers expressed an interest in Trashpo and has delved into it with depth, intensity and insight. This boekie we are thrilled to have received from her easily fits the definition of Trashbook, based on her ingenious use of found material.  This is a three-fold work with a total of six frames (pages). Among book artist friends, we are known (notorious) for not doing well with linear documentation. So we will try to compensate by presenting scans that show the two panels, all six pages and some close-ins.

WA Rodgers’ boekie came in this elegant wrapper.

My favourite part of the work is the panel (full scan at the top; one frame here) that displays waded up trash paper that appears to be in the process of disintegration (but is in actuality preserved in situ). This reminds me of paper mache. Much Trashpo you see is sanitized and in an excellent state of preservation. This only makes sense and is indeed only polite when you consider the work is being mailed to someone. Yet anyone who has participated in the ritual of gathering material in the streets to create Trashpo knows that it is often a grimy, gritty and dirty business. Thoughtlessly discarded consumer trash is a blight, and it becomes moreso as nature seeks to reclaim it. The genius of WA Rodgers in this boekie is that she captures this aspect of decomposing trash, giving it an unusual realism.

The Japanese Gutai Group – so influential in mail-art – was interested in the process of decay, decomposition and change that inevitably occurs in a work of art over time. Gutai emphasized the physical nature of these changes; this concept also has a metaphorical dimension that can be applied to text and image. WA Rodgers has a Gutai sensibility in this remarkable work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutai_group

This section of the piece also incorporates text with writing, further establishing its Trashpo connection. In this state of decomposition, some very interesting effects are achieved related to asemics and vispo:

In particular, this close-in reveals the breakdown and distress of the paper has produced a text only partially intelligible. Nature is (or chemistry?) is responsible for the erasure. This might be considered a kind of eco-asemics.

This frame shows more juxtaposition of materials. The process of decomposition, if anything, is highlighted even more by the strip of colour that is considerably more intact than the paper.

WA Rodgers has only given herself two panels and six frames in this work, yet she manages to be astonishingly versatile. This part of the boekie incorporates a more recognizable Trashpo collage style. The emphasis on image is pronounced, although – for instance – the red letters provide some interesting minimalist Trashpo in the classic style.

Here is a close-in. The book is highly interactive. Many different image/text combinations can be achieved by enfolding and unfolding the pages beyond what has been offered in these scans. The Trashbook was enclosed in an intriguing envelope:

Reverse:

Many thanks to WA Rodgers for this stunning and original work!

MinXus Mail Bag: From “Footprint Series” by Helder Coelho Dias (Coruche, Portugal)

Mail-art by Helder Coelho Dias (Coruche, Portugal)

A big “Howdy” goes to Helder Coelho Dias who makes his Mink Ranch debut with an absolutely stunning piece from his “Footprint Series,” which has already received praise at other mail-art venues. This is truly a mail-art gift beyond measure because Helder sent us the first work in the series. This will be given a special place in the MinXus USA archives!

The foundation of the work is the impression of Helder’s Coelho Dias’s footprints on a phone book page. This is impressive in itself, we think, because he explores anti-art and found materials. “Footprint Series” brings into question every conceivable element of traditional art. Rather than the use of his hands, his feet are the primary means of expression. The relationship of the body to the work of art is reconfigured, and there is a performance art aspect that extends the boundaries of the art. The placement of the work on the floor seems to question the exalted place and privileged position of painting. Many more interpretations must occur to viewers when they consider the conceptual aspects of the work. The reverse side offers documentation:

Yet there is much more to the work beyond the conceptual and anti-art levels. Helder Coelho Dias is a talented artist in the traditional realm as well. We think many would agree the work is aesthetically pleasing. The colours are luscious and subtle. His drawing adds considerable visual interest. The fiber piece and the gritty particles create wonderful textures and give the work a truly haptic dimension. As with many mail-artists, text is incorporated in the work, thus bringing the strengths of visual poetry into the mix.

What we find most remarkable is the way Helder Coelho Dias is able to integrate so many different elements and approaches into the work and still achieve a masterful unity. Here is the envelope:

And the reverse:

We are honoured that Helder chose to send us this piece from his “Footprint Series.” We offer our deepest thanks and assurance the piece will be treated with great respect and carefully preserved.

The Canonization of St. Empress Marie Antonette: The Miracle of the Levitation of the Fainting Couch into the Tangerine Aether at the Ruined Theater of Fluxus

“The Canonization of St. Empress Marie Antonette: The Miracle of the Levitation of the Fainting Couch into the Tangerine Aether at the Ruined Theater of Fluxus” by Dark wall