Mail-art by IUOMA member Carl T. Chew (Seattle, Washington, USA)
"The chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table."
February 16, 2012 - Chapters for the two collaborative visual poetry (vispo) editions Cheryl Penn (South Africa) and I are coordinating through the IUOMA are arriving in mailboxes across the globe. I am familiar with Carl T. Chew's superlative stamp work, but his chapter is a delight beyond anything I imagined.
Cheryl and I invited 15 artists for each edition to contribute a chapter that is a visual poetry homage to a favorite artist or visual poet. Carl's work will appear in Edition #2. He is in stellar company. Other contributors include Reed Altemus (USA), John M. Bennett (USA), Angie Cope (USA), E (France), Rosa Gravino (Argentina). Lisa Iversen (USA) Samuel Montalvetti (Argentina), Marcela Peral (Argentina), Svetlana Pesetskaya (Russia), TIC TAC (Germany), Svenja Wahl (Germany), and Nancy Bell Scott (USA). Some of the contributors are Asemics 16 veterans and all can be relied upon to produce innovative and interesting work.
http://iuoma-network.ning.com/group/collaborativemailartbooks/forum...
Carl T. Chew's chapter (as the top scan indicates) features complex, subtle, and beautifully produced vispo, revealing what can be achieved through the digitial medium in the hands of a master. Text runs throughout the chaper too:
Carl uses what seems to be cut-up but generally coherent text from a catalog or book that puts Man Ray in the context of the historic avant garde. His theme and variation work with Man Ray imagery and integration with text works for me very effectively as visual poetry.
This two-page spread is my favorite. In the text is embedded the Lautreamont (don't do accent marx) quote that provides such a useful perspective on both DaDa and Surrealist practices: "the chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table."
The wordplay in "Man Ray deconstructed" is, I think, outstanding, managing to make a connection between deconstruction and rat poison as well as a nod to Ray Johnson. However, I would point out to Carl, deconstruction is an unholy offspring of surrealism. Would the surrealists object to the "dissection" of Derrida? Probably not. They exist now through symbiosis. Moving on:
I love the discontinuity between the "plate" references in the traditional text and the numbered figures accompanying the visual poems. I believe this mirrors a larger theme of coherence vs. discontinuity that is central to Man Ray's powerful work. An underlying concept of Carl's chapter might well be: "the chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table."
During this project, we did not have the intense discussions that were such a necessary part of the Asemics 16 process. All the work I have seen so far seeks a middle ground combining text and image; visual poetry does not necessarily require words.
As the Martha Stuart School of Asemic Wallpaper Certificate Program in Vispo Greeting Cards (offered in conjunction with the books) illustrated, the poetic issue of words and images is an important area of consideration. For me, Carl uses a poetics of image complemented by language that reveals the beauty of its visual representation (? ;)
And onward the stunning final page:
Even the envelope is a work of art:
I have not dug into the other chapters much, but if they prove to be like this extraordinary work by Carl T. Chew, we are going to have an instant classic! Carl has a great website where his work and career is well-documented. He is a very interesting person, and I hope you will learn more about him:
MAIL-ART PSYCHIC
An asemic version of "Actress shoots Antonin"
burlap
The German
87/2/1
Ray said Rain Rien gave you fare warning
Neo, Postneo, anti-neo
The colors that most dominate your closet are (a) neutral & dark hues (b) reds & brilliant hues
Russian space station
Comment
Speaking of TT & anti-art - live coverage of the Fluxus/Anti-Art show. Kids! It's not too late. Send your anti-art!
Related to this, I saw a discussion Linda Pelati (Italy) started that has a chunk of one of the old Fluxus manifestos, probably by Maciunas. It explains the anti-art, minimalist, anti-theory positions that are reflected in the Lautremont quote. I found the quote originally in something Thierry Tillier did:
Excuse me, Cheryl, yes, Lautreamont (w/ an accent mark). We dissected the quote thoroughly some time back, but I can't find the thread. Thanks
ooops - sorry - you SAID Lautréamon!
Well - keep it up - its great - keep you out of mischief too :-) X
industrial spray paint. layer of asemic stamps. layer of industrial paint, layer of asemic stamps. there will be more experimenting with this
All the water in the sea could not wash away a single intellectual bloodstain (Lautréamont??? I think). But as we know – the pot ended up calling kettle black…. I think the tune on this FAB record is the historic “Perceived Thistle in the Jammie Opus”? It certainly looks good.
What do you think about this?
Lautréamont said: poetry must be made by all, not by one. Éluard's comment on this: poetry will purify all men. All ivory towers will be demolished.
that's beautiful, Dw, did you paint directly on the record? I wonder...
Now I know where I've learned bear baiting...
Want to support the IUOMA with a financial gift via PayPal?
The money will be used to keep the IUOMA-platform alive. Current donations keep platform online till 1-september-2025. If you want to donate to get IUOMA-publications into archives and museums please mention this with your donation. It will then be used to send some hardcopy books into museums and archives. You can order books yourself too at the IUOMA-Bookshop. That will sponsor the IUOMA as well.
IMPORTANT: please use the friends/family option with donation on Paypal. That makes transaction fee the lowest.
This IUOMA platform on NING has no advertisings, so the funding is completely depending on donationsby members. Access remains free for everybody off course
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
Bewaren
http://www.iuoma.org
IUOMA on Facebook
http://www.mail-art.de
http://www.mailart.be
Mail-Art on Wikipedia
Bookstore IUOMA
www.fluxus.org
Drawings Ruud Janssen
Mail Art Blog by Jayne
Fluxlist Europe
Privacy Revolution
fluxlist.blogspot.com/
TAM Rubberstamp Archive
MAIL-ART Projects
mail art addresses
Artistampworld
panmodern.com
MIMA-Italy
artistampmuseum
Papersizes Info
IUOMA Logo's
Mail Artists Index
Mailart Adressen
Maries Mailbox Blog
http://mailartarchive.com/
Mail-Interviews
http://www.crosses.net/
Ryosuke Cohen
http://heebeejeebeeland.blogspot.nl/
Your link here? Send me a message.
© 2024 Created by Ruud Janssen. Powered by
You need to be a member of International Union of Mail-Artists to add comments!
Join International Union of Mail-Artists