There are many different forms of art, and many different reasons for making art; it has been used as fun, for expression, and to show cultures and beliefs.
During the 1950’s artists were trapped by society’s bounds, art that didn’t follow the usual rules wasn’t considered ‘good art’; the message needed to get out to the world that no art is bad, that there are no rules and society should not be able to limit the art people were exposed to. Communication was the tool they needed to get their messages out to the world and to share and learn with other artists. They wanted to spread their beliefs, ideas, and experiences throughout the world. These ideas came from a small group of artists who turned art through communication into a form called Mail Art. Inspired by the Italian Futurists and a group called Fluxus, Ray Johnson gathered many artists together and turned this new art form into a movement.
Mail Art is a way of sending messages, a medium, and an art genre; what some people don’t know is that it was a movement started by artists who wanted to free themselves from society’s limits on art. Artists, who wanted to explore other possibilities, share and communicate with others all around the world. They began sending their own work to places far away from them in hopes of starting global communication among the arts. Communication became the key to it all; working together to free each other from the limits put on art in society made it possible for many artists to show off their work and bring out their ideas. Art no longer needed to be published or approved to be seen and understood. The most popular years of the mail art movement were between 1950 and 1990 and included over fifty countries. People wanted a non-commercial way to spread their art; instead of being held down by the art that was all around them, they could stretch their knowledge and experiences further out by sharing with people in other countries. Ray Johnson is the key person who got the mail art movement running by opening the doors for artists to communicate with one another. The father of Mail Art, Ray Johnson, can honestly be the starting point of the mail art movement. In the 1950’s in New York, he was sending out collages of the things around him to other artists. Johnson would ask other artists to look at his work and either sent it around to other people or even would send them something unfinished so they and other artists could add to what he started. The continuous process spread to so many artists that the New York Correspondence School was made. Ray Johnson was inspired by two groups, that Italian Futurists and Fluxus. He saw that the artists within these groups were breaking society’s bonds on the arts; they were growing and moving forward with the world, which was the effect he wanted his movement to have on society.
Italian Futurism was originally a literacy movement started in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The way he started the movement was by creating the Founding Manifesto of Futurism; this was to reject the past so that they could focus on the future of speed, violence, and youth. The manifest’s goal was to get the people to look forward to all the new machines and industries so modernization could be set in Italy. Industrialization was going to set in and Italy needed to be ready for it; Marinetti and a few other artists wrote many manifests on new clothing styles, technologies, war, and everyday rituals that would be developed into the new world. The Mail Art movement was to move the arts forward and to develop away from society’s norms on art. The Italian Futurists wanted to prepare people for the new world and to move poetry and music and paintings forward so they could grow with the rest of the world. This couldn’t be done without communication; which is where mail artists got the idea that they could work together and spread their movement across the globe to get the effects they needed from the people. They needed to get society to develop with their styles and ideas, just as the Italian Futurists needed Italy to grow with everything else.
The word Fluxus comes from the Latin word fluxis, fluris which translates to ‘a continuous flow’, ‘moving’ or ‘continuous succession of changes’ which describes this movement perfectly. The most active years were between 1960 and 1978, the years that George Maciunas was the most involved. He put Fluxus into its three stages of growth and kept the artists involved together for as long as he could. Fluxus was a movement that stood to show people that anything can be art and anyone can make art; the plan was to eliminate the ‘fine art’ category, since art is simply art. There were three main phases that Fluxus went through during Maciunas’s full involvement; the first was the proto-flux period, the second was the publishing multiples phase, and the third was the phase for performances. These three phases were used as inspiration to many mail artists. The first phase was the proto-flux period where he planned out and organized a number of festivals to gather people’s attention and get more and more of the public involved in the art movement. This phase was concentrated from 1961 to 1964 and switched into the second phase because the artists who had helped to assemble the festivals and get Fluxus moving had spread apart from each other and moved on. The second phase of Fluxus focused mainly on publishing art and making multiple pieces together. This phase had great artists such as Ben Vautier, Robert Watts, and Ken Friedmen involved; they made many wonderful pieces of art that were shown all over. However, this phase ended and gave way to a new one in 1970; the performance phase of Fluxus. During this time period Fluxus held many really exciting events, one being the 100 yard race with vodka. Fluxus took lots of activities and made them fun and artistic so that many people could be involved and the Fluxus movement could spread out even further. Even though this final phase ended in 1978, there are still people who keep Fluxus moving forward, as it should, since what this movement stood for was breaking the binds of societal rules on art.
Artists in the 1950’s wanted to get out of the norms that were set on art by society, they wanted to make it possible for anyone to create and present their art without judgment. They had to work together to spread the movement and Ray Johnson gave them a way to communicate with one another in order to make that possible. Artists all around the world began sending their art through the mailing system and it became a movement. The Mail Art Movement remains among the arts today; many artists are spreading their beliefs, and ideas around the world through the mailing system. Artists learned from Fluxus that anyone can make art and there are no ‘norms’ to stick to. The Italian Futurists taught artists that people should stop focusing so much on the past and what is already and focus on the future and what could be. These artists took what they learned and turned it into a movement that would take the arts out of society’s limits.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Horstmann, Chris, Heiner Grote. “Mail-Art” Mail Art. Web. 14 November 2012.
Bloch, Mark. “A Brief History of Postal Art” Postal Art. Web. 14 November 2012.
Dieter, Daniels. “The Art of Communication: From Mail Art to Email” September 1994. Web. 13
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Armstrong, Elizabether, Joan Rothfuss. “In The Spirit of Fluxus” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1993.
Balla, Giacomo. “Italian Futurism: Marinetti” 28 September 1999. Web. 18 December 2012.