RECEIVED: Mail-Art on the Dark Side from Marie Wintzer (Saitama, Japan)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Marie Wintzer (Saitama, Japan)

 

May 2, 2011 - In addition to all her other talents, Marie Wintzer is an excellent photographer. I think she has been very successful at integrating this work into her mail-art. The piece she sent (above) is a Polaroid. The scan is not particularly good but does capture the darkness and graininess of the shot.  

 

It's becoming more and more evident to me that, beyond her obvious skills and natural aesthetic abilities, one of Marie's great gifts is creating art that is conceptual or concept-based. So my first reaction to this piece was that it was derived from Fluxus, not uncommon at the IUOMA. All the elements are there in classic form. Additionally, I thought of a Ben Vautier performance video involving chairs that's posted on this site.

 

The more time I spend with it, however, the more I realize it is a subtle piece of expressionism and captures a unique emotional experience, albeit on the dark side. The title "la nuit" is poetic, minimal, and captures the mood perfectly. Marie's note (actually the true recipient of this piece is Dark wall, but he's not very articulate) explains the mail-art a bit more:

 

 

This goes back to March 17 when Marie found herself a near-refugee as the result of the Japan tragedy. At the same time, our mutual friend Dark wall was creating an incomprehensible (or incoherent) mail-art epic in her honor based on Dante. Marie was called upon to review drafts via IUOMA daily. I can't imagine this was a pleasant time for Marie on any level. That explains what the note is about. The Polaroid is stapled into some very cool material that gives the work a haptic dimension. Marie never fails to amaze with great envelopes:

 

And the reverse:

 

 

As ever. make sure to check out Marie's amazing mail-art blog:

 

http://mariesmailbox.blogspot.com/

[De Villo Sloan]

I'm with Katerina, love the white chairs. Talk about composition. And there sure is a resemblance to the George Brecht piece.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

You will come out of the night, Marie.

You see? Your chairs are glowing white already...full of optimism.

An amazing photopo!

And thought-provoking blog, Sloan! I second that "WOW"!

[cheryl penn]

Wow - both of you.

[Marie Wintzer]

That's interesting. I like that "Chair event", the composition is so.... perfect? I think I unconsciously take a lot of pictures of chairs. here is another version of La nuit. Le jour.

[De Villo Sloan]

Give me an inch and I'll take a mile. I connected "la nuit" to Fluxus because chairs seem to be favorite objects, right up there with ladders and pianos. George Brecht used them a lot - almost a trademark. Here's a shot from a show of his work held in 2009 in Berlin. I think it's called "Chair Event":

Mostly you get shots of chairs in sterile, well-lit galleries. The darkness and grittiness of yours adds a dimension. What is it about empty chairs? They definitely have some kind of quality that draws artists to focus on them. I thought you did a great job with this - and obviously you're not alone.

[Marie Wintzer]

I'm a happy CB right now :-))

[De Villo Sloan]

Aw c'mon CB. This is a great piece. I love it. I'm treasuring every moment of this Fluxy, punky, edgy phase you're going through. Right down to the staples, it's genius. Although you haven't beat Mudhead yet who attached his new Fluxus stamps to his skin with safety pins. And regardless of the styles you experiment with, it's still YOU. I think that's amazing. You know DW adores it. He thought I would do a better job with the blogging. We're working on a little gallery-shrine for your work from this period.

[Marie Wintzer]

Sloan! Thanks for blogging this, it is so minimal I don't know how you can come up with this great blog.

Those were strange days. They seem so far away yet so close. We are not completely out of the night yet, are we ever going to be?...

Thanks for this nice blog!

[De Villo Sloan]

Woh, I was just posting a comment on "Hey You." Po-to (like in the Blizzard of Oz I mean Wizard of Oz)? Yeah, visual poetry for sure.

[Austin Wills James]

Photo-Po?