"Unfinished Writing" by Ruud Janssen (Breda, Netherlands)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail art by IUOMA founder Ruud Janssen (Breda, Netherlands)

Part I

March 6, 2015 - Celebrated mail artist, archivist, network scholar and IUOMA founder Ruud Janssen has released a new wave of his work into the network. I consider myself fortunate indeed to have received not one but two envelopes from him. (I will begin with this documentation and post a second part soon.)

Working in the spirit of Fluxus, Ruud Janssen’s art has provided innovations in every aspect of the postal art genre. In recent years, I have documented Janssen’s hand-painted envelopes in particular. I note in this new work as well – this piece and work mailed to others – an emphasis on maximum utilization of the outer surfaces of the envelope as artistic space as significant and equal as the interior. Given that many people see the envelope as it passes through the postal system, maximum use of the exterior is an excellent strategy for all mail artists to consider. (It’s surprising how many envelopes arrive unadorned.) Ruud Janssen is also especially recognized for his stamps, and this envelope is a veritable exhibition of wonderful stamps both contemporary and historical.

Janssen is a visual artist who works beyond the correspondence art realm too. He has made contributions to visual poetry and other genres – sometimes called verbal visual – associated with Fluxus-related figures such Emmett Williams, Dick Higgins and Janssen’s partner Litsa Spathi, to name only a few. As if the envelope were not enough, it contained an absolutely tremendous hand-altered print by Ruud Janssen identified as a verbal-visual language experiment. This is a large, poster-size work (approximately 11 x 17 inches). The scale makes it very powerful. Unfortunately, due to my own image reproduction limitations, I will have to show you the work received in two parts. However, I have a scan of the original to share first:

“Unfinished Writing” (2015) by Ruud Janssen. (Image courtesy of Ruud Janssen)

More “Unfinished Writing” by Ruud Janssen (2015). (Image courtesy of Ruud Janssen)

Now here is the altered print we received:

Deepest apologies for the annoying break in the center, but at least you can look at the detail and compare the work to the earlier version. I also emphasize the piece is LARGE, which hard to gauge from the scans.

Ruud Janssen’s commentary provides ample explanation. I will not speculate to any great extent about whether the work is or is not asemic writing, whether it is or is not visual poetry. I will offer the view that I think the “Unfinished Writing” series explores the legible vs. the illegible (the intelligible and the indeterminate), layering, distortion and even a form of erasure. The use of color suggests the vispo realm. All in all, “Unfinished Writing” addresses on a conceptual level the issues of language and text that preoccupy most visual poets and asemic writers today. Yet, unlike some of the vispo and asemics we see, “Unfinished Writing” stands on its own as an aesthetic work rather than a linguistic formula. The work is very expressive and also must surely have resonance for correspondence artists in particular.

Deepest thanks, as ever, to Ruud Janssen!

[De Villo Sloan]

TICTAC writes from experience as being a visual-textual (vispo) artist herself. I have a good collection of her work, some boekies (chapbooks, artist books).

I think some of the visual poets who are essentially writers (maybe I am guilty too) are very theoretical or miss the opportunity of combining visual art with language and thus miss expressive possibilities.

TICTAC participated in the IUOMA book projects w/me and Cheryl Penn. I always felt the best results came from people who were visual artists and had not gotten bogged down in all the literary theory part of asemics. The poets (writers) tended to argue about theory and not do much work (I'm guilty of that too, I'm sure).

[Ptrzia (TICTAC)]

in fact the expression comes from that personal feeling/journey when fusing visual and literal, without it the work comes out random and technical..there are many artists who are amazing mastering tecniques but who are rarely original per se, hence expressionless.

[Ruud Janssen]

[De Villo Sloan]

Interesting thought, TICTAC.

I've noticed in some of the recent work by RJ that uses numbers and letters - some of it beyond the "Unfinished Writing" - looks like concrete poetry in terms of lines and repetition, some of them like the things produced on a typewriter. But it's all done with handwriting, which is different.

With much of this work recently (by many people) I've noticed a divide between work that is impersonal and sterile and work that is expressive. For instance, Kerri Pullo's work is very expressive. Ruud Janssen's seems very expressive as well.

[Ptrzia (TICTAC)]

i really like this interpretation of the Unfinished Writing, different and personal.

[De Villo Sloan]

A perfect choice, Ruud - thanks again. I had liked the "Unfinished Writing" pieces on FB. The poster size and the ink make the real thing much better than the scans. Excellent in terms of vispo and asemic writing discussions as well.

[Ruud Janssen]

Thanks for the kind words De Villo Sloan.  Glad you liked the sending...