From Fake Fine Art to Trashpo Parody: Malibu Barbie's Awesome Adventure (Escondido, California, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Fake Fine Art (Escondido, California, USA)

March 18, 2014 - Some know her as Fake Fine Art. Some know her as Indiana Rogers. Some know her as Mean Sheena. Then you have Malibu Barbie and Crocodile Barbie.

Regardless of what you call her, it is undeniable this multiple identity mail-artist is becoming a network presence. Not since the heyday of similar characters such as Karen Eliot and janet janet has identification been more confusing, if it matters. Since her conversion to DKult, Fake Fine Art has become a Trashpo darling as well.

Unfortunately, I am an object of Fake Fine Art's ridicule and contempt (see above) in her sometimes confused campaign to stamp out misogyny and males in general. First, here is the reverse side of the envelope:

This is an example of Fake Fine Art's work depicting DKult that has created such a sensation among the Trashpoets. In the lower right is a burning dumpster. Also included in the mailing is a sort of scrapbook documenting the golden moments of her character evolution over the last several weeks:

Here is an artifact from her Malibu Barbie phase she sent me. This also seems to be a projection of her Mean Sheena identity with the Naughty List Bitches.

Next, Fake Fine Art announced she had married Vizma Bruns (Australia). (Vizma might possibly be a member of the Naughty List Bitches.) Fake Fine Art's documentation is all the more challenging because a split-personality autobiography is confusing. Here she became Crocodile Barbie.

Blaster Al Ackerman is alleged to have used 18 different identities in the mail-art network. The difference between Blaster and Fake Fine Art is that the Blaster was able to compartmentalize and keep the identities separate and even secret. Fake Fine Art's identities are exploding and melting into each other simultaneously across the net and snail mail like multiple eggs hurled at an empty wall. Stick around long enough, and you might witness an implosion.

For a brief moment, Fake Fine Art's D-Konversion seemed permanent. Only now, she has released these Trashpo parodies that are currently circulating:

And this:

This is D-Klassic work; I cannot deny it. But is Trashpo parody truly Trashpo? I will address this issue in my forthcoming essay "Toward A Conceptual Trashpo." Is Fake Fine Art moving Trashpo in a new direction? Or is this work an early symptom of a dissatisfaction with DKult and an inevitable break?

For me, watching Fake Fine Art's evolution is similar to witnessing an unfolding train wreck. I can only guess that the best is still yet to come.

[DKeys]

The question of what is trash was discussed extensively in the Trashpo group,  but it has been so long. Rebecca--your find sounds fantastic. from the trashpo discussion threads

Trashpo means many things to many people and maybe broadly has come to mean-art made from garbage. Other terms and subdivisions include:

poubellisme:  french trash art (art made from contents of "poubelles" (trash bins) garbology-general term for dealing with and/or interacting with Garbage; as in a "garbologist".  Trash poetry--trash plus a stamp. also, trash arranged in a purposeful way to achieve a desired aesthetic.  Junk Art Trash Art Found objects Mail art Omens (see definition below)

Civilized and Mystical branch of Trashpoetry--Mail Art Omen-ists:

superstitious about  trashpo. It has to be authentic in that it was found, not sought out, and comes  in a way that is  mysterious and serendipitous. It  has to have come from someone other than the finder, preferably an anonymous 'donor'. If the items are too commonly found, they are of no interest. It has to be something that has some meaning to someone even if just for a fleeting moment.

A non-inclusive definition of trashbooks:

Trashbooks generally consist of, but are not limited to: shopping lists,  magazine bits, shop slips, reject art, cereal boxes, messages (with and without meaning), typically grungy and messy, torn, tattered,stamped, consisting of multiple textures such as felt, bubble wrap, envelopes, cardboard, ribbon, string, paper towel, dryer sheets, plastic, postcards, vellum, etc. with a binding-typically sewn. What makes a trashbook a trashbook, is that the creator intended it to be a trashbook (with or without the acknowledgement by the book itself that it is a trashbook), and that the materials are things typically discarded, without immediate value, and unconventional in some way. Items can be found, extraneous (spell chick can edit this post), rejected, dejected, forgotten, abandoned, discarded, unappreciated, cast off, put aside, or have hidden value seen only to other trashpo artists, if such a thing exists. Cheryl has recently validated trashbooks as a  genre.trashbooks will appreciated in a whole new way. If trashbooks were a character, they would be the underdog. And some people can not help but root for the underdog. 

[De Villo Sloan]

Rebecca, recycling and using trash for art is part of Trashpo practice. You're fine. What concerns me about your question is that it implies there is a right way and a wrong way to do Trashpo. I do not believe there is. I did not mean to start that kind of discussion. Many people are doing Trashpo in different ways and the results are spectacular.

I asked a very specific question here about FFA's parodies.

Otherwise, we have the original Trashpo made by Jim Leftwich (aka Trashpo Jesus) and the early work of Diane Keys as historical markers. We have Rain Rien Nevermind's recycling. That's where it started.

I am off my game here due to FFA's depictions of me as a monkey with diapers and her NLB hit on me as some sort of symbol of misogyny. Now it looks like I am seeking revenge because I ask simple questions about her parodies. Why am I the diaper poster monkey? Because I do advocate for real men like Jackson Pollock, Jack Kerouac & I don't dismiss Burroughs because he accidentally shot his wife. I think we can be inclusive here.

I apologize to the Trashpoets and reiterate I am not trying to establish tribunals or some fascistic program to determine Trashpo purity.

[Rebecca Guyver]

So I presume buying trash, (so it doesn't end up in landfill) is a no-no. I ask because someone was selling a box of culled negatives for next to nothing today and I could see they were about to load up their van and take the contents to the dump, so I bought the box of junk. I'm thinking out load here. Is it valid to intervene in trash making,  to 'rescue' trash for re-use? Help.  This could be a crisis of confidence!

[De Villo Sloan]

I do at least appreciate the discussion, as I know I have a minority view on this topic. As I ponder the new work by several Trashpoets for "Toward A Conceptual Trashpo," I find myself in agreement with FFA that the question is: What is trash? Oh, BTW I am working on some new material for an NLB piece:

[Claudia Garcia]

Great works!!!!!! I like them!!!

[DKeys]

those who pandered trashpo to WalMart quickly failed.  The only thing they wanted to do with it was allow us a line of Dkult trashbags. We are better than that.  Besides we haven't mastered how to craft them from hemp.  The knit ones Rebecca made were a fail.  Here is some repurposed roadkill I made for FFA.  She sent me this sticker with a DKult sticker in the place that now is adorned with RK--found just yesterday.  I hope she likes this.  Yes--synthetic trashpo is a tricky subject.  It then becomes performance art as we once discussed.  If you purposely kill an animal to make them road kill as performance art, then you have missed the idea of trashpo and repurposing things considered garbage by our society.  I'm a trashpo purist in that I 1)don't believe in washing found trash (as if it is that disgusting I don't pick it up) or making trashpo that is sanitized metaphorically in any way ( You know of what I speak)  2)trash must be found in a serendipitous fashion 3) there are no rules in trashpo

this is for you FFA:

[De Villo Sloan]

DK, both you and Jim Leftwich have given FFA's Trashpo parodies the stamp of approval. I do think they are great pieces. I do think they are representational Trashpo, in that, as you suggest, they are not made from authentic trash. You know I am also not thrilled about the attempts that have been made by some to commercialize and commodify Trashpo either.

I am not advocating for Trashpo Correctness or some notion of Trashpo purity. I will address these issues in my forthcoming essay "Toward A Conceptual Trashpo."

[DKeys]

although these might have been intended as parody, I find that purist trashpo pieces, unless of course these were not 'found' for which we have no way of knowing.  So the question is--would any of FFA's personalities eat tomato soup? i think not. Would FFA let a banana rot just to take a pic of it for art? definately yes.  but hopefully these were found on the mean streets of escondido. At Dkult we take trash very seriously, so it does not surprise me, given her anarchist leanings, that she would try to turn this on Dkult's very clean and washed head.  I will respond to this at a later time after I have consulted with KDJ.  We need to determine if this is a threat to the existing order, an attempt at a trashpo hijack, or a subliminal way to make people hungry.  If it option C, then she has passed the DKult initation.