Mail-Artists to remember

[Ruud Janssen]

Over the years some mail-Artists we knew have passed away. Which Mail-Artists do you remember and what story could you tell us as a rememberance?

[Ruud Janssen]

Joseph W. Huber from East-Germany. A contact with the other side off the wall in Germany. Remember his mail-art and conceptual works.

[Denis Charmot]

I am very saddened. I never had any exchange of mailart with Johannes J. Musolf but some exchange of e-mail.

[Ruud Janssen]

[Oh Boy]

...14 years ago today Ray ended his life.

Friday Night Bridge Club
http://www.e-z-smith.com/dip09.html

[Guido Vermeulen]

Marilyn Dammann's loss was a great loss for me and for many who communicated with "shadow".
Visit for this one of my blogs:
http://shadowtributes.blogspot.com

Guido

[Ruud Janssen]

From Joan Puig i received the news: "I was informed by Gianni Simone that the artist "arto posto" passed away."

arto posto lived in the usa. She was one of the mail-artists that I interviewed for the mail-interview project. See: http://stores.lulu.com/iuoma

[Ruud Janssen]

The sad news is Judith Hofbergs editorial of her latest Umbrella.....

Volume 31, No. 3, Dec 2008
From the Editor
To my subscribers, institutions, collectors, artists, friends:

One would not have imagined a disease chasing me down the end of the road, but it happened in August, diagnosed in September, analyses were done by experts, and I came home on the first of October to hospice at my home. To say that I was in a state of shock would be a euphemism. It all came too fast.

As soon as I walked into the house, my life completely changed. I was no longer a writer, editor, publisher, traveler, choc-o-holic, insomniac; I was a cancer patient. I have acute myeloid leukemia. And in the interim between October 1st and as I write this, I have been organizing my archives, throwing things away I never would have otherwise, and preparing myself for the last journey. This is the most difficult editorial I’ve ever written to you, and it will be my last.

In the past, you have learned about alternative spaces all over the world, itineraries of trips that I have taken that have led me to exotic and creative places. You never bargained about learning about Fluxus, mail art and archives, video art, sound art, performance art, rubber stamps, and so much more that was fecund in those early years.

Frankly, it took a lot of work, a lot of reading, a lot of traveling, but the task was as fruitful for me as it was for you. With the technology we went from Composer I to Composer II, to computer. It was a learning curve for me, but I always wanted Umbrella to “look good.” When you saw that light blue issue in the mail, you knew what it was. The whole field of artist books became my life and I wanted to share it with all of you. Although marginal at the beginning, it has grown into a movement, a new chapter in art history, one which is recognized by art historians, artists, and all of you. It has become almost too much now, with so many conferences, book fairs, and symposia to attend. And as usual, it has spread globally.

Obsessed with umbrellas and parasols, it allowed me to create a huge collection of “umbrelliana” which has overwhelmed both my domestic and storage settings. I learned more about textiles, fashion, kitsch, marketing, performance art, multicultural innovations with the object umbrella, encountering artists who used the image to intrigue me as well as to whet my appetite. It has been an easy image to collect in paper ephemera as well as almost 200 three-dimensional umbrella objects. From a tiny Chinese lace umbrella to a 19th century silk parasol, from 333 antiquarian books to countless artifacts, the collection has grown over the past 30 years.

In the ensuing two months I have been in hospice, I have missed sharing with you all the art news, umbrella news, and mail art news for this issue. With this issue I say goodbye, knowing full well that you can always read back issues, do database research in all the issues from vol.1 no. 1, with Umbrella being a free journal for all to read, from 1978 through 2008. This has been made possible for posterity thanks to Indiana University and Sonja Staum-Kuniej at IUPUI.

It is with heartfelt thanks that I recognize all the contributors, even those who sent just snippets of information that I could use for the next issue. Interviews with intriguing artists have been Googled as number one under the artist’s name. Perhaps that is because I chose obscure artists, but why not? And we went from no covers to spectacularly beautiful color covers as the technology allowed us. The printers took extreme care in making Umbrella a handsome and readable publication. No less gratitude is due webmaster, Jim Hanson, who made the electronic issue of Umbrella clear and well-designed transition to the new technology.

Through the years, from the beginning, I have depended upon all the libraries, colleges and universities, public libraries, private collectors, museums, and galleries that supported me in this 31-year endeavor. But it is also the artists, friends, and colleagues, who have allowed me to produce Umbrella. Without you, it could not have happened.

details: http://www.umbrellaeditions.com/issue.php?page=125&issue=12

[Oh Boy]

Judith Hoffberg Passed Away Friday Jan. 16, 2009


A Toast to All Our Dear Departed Correspondence Artists...

[Oh Boy]

More info soon...

[Ruud Janssen]

Sad news. ... Thanks for sharing this with us....

[Ruud Janssen]

It was fast, she found out she had cancer in September.
She passed away peacefully.
She was 74.

[Oh Boy]

LA Times (1.28.2008)

Hoffberg was a major influence in the emergence of books as artworks and established a global edible-book festival.
By Valerie J. Nelson

Judith Hoffberg, an art librarian and curator who was a major influence in the emergence of books as an artist's medium yet winked at the genre by establishing a global festival of edible books, has died. She was 74.

Hoffberg, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia four months ago, died of lymphoma Jan. 16 at her Santa Monica home, said Jon Liu, a nephew.

Since 1978, Hoffberg had edited and published Umbrella, a journal increasingly dedicated to artists' books, which are works of art that are realized in book form. She tended to favor books with a "sculptural quality" that embodied their subject with pages that might form, for example, a necklace or a silk snake.

Jay Belloli, director of gallery programs at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, said Hoffberg was "incredibly important in the emergence of artists' books in Southern California" and once ran a bookstore that gave them their primary exposure in Los Angeles.

Like many book artists, Elena Mary Siff considered Hoffberg a mentor and said: "She stretched the idea of what a book is. . . . She was always pushing the envelope."

Over about 20 years, Hoffberg curated more than 20 exhibitions, including "Women of the Book," which opened in 1997 and toured the country for years. The show featured works by Jewish women that often explored family roots. One artist portrayed the Holocaust experience of her parents on papier-mache models of their tattooed arms. Another showcased the thin contents of her deceased parents' safe-deposit box.

Belloli called Hoffberg "kind of an unsung heroine of parts of art that a number of people didn't pay attention to but are historically important and in many cases a . . . lot of fun."

She also was an authority on mail art -- loosely defined as anything that can be sent through the mail -- and Fluxus, an art movement that emerged in the mid-20th century known for blending media and disciplines. Both received coverage in Umbrella, printed through 2005 and then published online through last year.

"The whole field of artist books became my life, and I wanted to share it with all of you," Hoffberg wrote in December in her final editorial for Umbrella. "Although marginal at the beginning, it has grown into a movement, a new chapter in art history."

In 1992, she curated a major exhibit on mail art that was so massive it took 11 days to hang at the Armory Center. The 800 objects in "Freedom: The International Mail Art Exhibition" included a still-life painting with postage and address affixed to the canvas, and a literal piece of "junk mail" -- a model of a Chinese sailing vessel that had been sent unwrapped through the mail.

While gathered with artist friends around a Thanksgiving table in 1999, Hoffberg came up with the idea for an international edible-book festival, which debuted the next year. By 2006, it was reportedly held in 26 states and 15 countries, usually around April Fools' Day, partly to emphasize the tongue-in-cheek nature of it all.

Local entries have included a peanut-butter-and-sesame tome that spelled out "Open sesame" and a plea for the hungry called "Feed the World," constructed by Santa Monica students in the form of an accordion-fold book of matzo and icing.

One entry that Hoffberg considered most original was "Lettuce Talk about Biotechnology." Messages were cut into individual lettuce leaves, a development that caused crowds to gather to read them before they were eaten.

Judith Ann Hoffberg was born May 19, 1934, in Hartford, Conn., and by the 1950s had moved to Los Angeles with her family. Her father ran a gas station on National Boulevard.

At UCLA, she received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1956, a master's in Italian language and literature in 1960 and a master's in library science in 1964.

As an art librarian, Hoffberg held posts with Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center in Italy, the Library of Congress, the University of Pennsylvania, UC San Diego, the Brand Library in Glendale and the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1973, she co-founded the Art Libraries Society of North America and served as its first chairwoman.

Her lifelong interest in artists' books was reflected in a personal collection that numbered 6,000. UCLA owns some of her collection, and the remainder will go to UC Santa Barbara.

Friends and art colleagues invariably mentioned Hoffberg's keen intelligence, forthright manner and boundless enthusiasm for artists' books.

The name of her art journal led Hoffberg to amass art that she called "umbrelliana," which included a personal collection of almost 200 3-D umbrella objects.

In addition to her nephew, Jon, Hoffberg is survived by another nephew, Kawika Liu.

A memorial service was being planned.