RECEIVED: Mail-Art "Attack" from Cheryl Penn (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Cheryl Penn (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

 

March 30, 2011 - Cheryl Penn and I are working on another mail-art book project involving verbs. Her "Attack" chapter explores areas I do not often see in Cheryl's work. "Attack" is in no way subtle. The color, torn paper, and minimal word use make powerful visual poetry. I have tried to capture that with the scan above, which shows particularly compelling pages from the chapter's interior. Here is the opening page:

 

Nice overlays and broken letters. "Attack" strikes me (no humor intended) as being very much in the spirit of work posted at the IUOMA last year that generated a great deal of discussion. I refer to work by Litsa Spathi (Netherlands, Greece) and her concept of Fluxus Poetry as well as David-Baptiste Chirot's "RubBeing's" (USA). Here are the next two pages of "Attack":

 

The key concept I am focusing on here is what I can best call a re-positioning of the field of "the work of art" and its relationship and integration with life and the artist's experience. I think Litsa Spathi's work provides a good comparison. Her visual poetry on the page and in videos done in collaboration with Ruud Janssen are readily accessible at the IUOMA and elsewhere. The Fluxus Heidelberg Center is the source for more information on Fluxus Poetry, which broadens the traditional idea of a poem appearing on the page or being read before an audience to a unique performance by the artist:

 

http://www.fluxusheidelberg.org/fpinfo.html

 

To fully appreciate Spathi's work, I think you must be aware that it is the result of performances by Spathi. The creation of the poetry is derived from physical movement and the direct involvement of the artist with the material of language. Text and videos can then be viewed as documentation and part of a larger process. The strict boundaries between art and life are made less distinct. More involvement by the audience is also necessary in this continuum.

 

Cheryl Penn's "Attack" seems to me illuminated by this concept. The chapter is not so much an enclosed work of art but the record of emotions and physical activity that speak to us a humans. "Attack" urges the receiver not so much to passively receive images but to react, even to the point of physical experience:

When I received "Attack," my personal response - almost as strong as looking at it - was to TOUCH it. The slashes (slashpo?), rips, the power of the verbs, the insistence of the phrasing are a vivid chronicle of activity and raw emotions. Intellectualizing is bypassed. These pages are DISTRESSED. They have been brutalized; yet they do not suggest to me any kind of larger metaphors. This is simply basic, raw human expression. In an earlier discussion, I believe it was Erni Baer (Germany) who suggested that holes and slashes in pages like this can be read as a signification of breaking down the barrier between art and life (Erni used Burroughs' shotgun paintings as an example). Others have noted that with pages having broken surfaces and perforations, there is a natural compulsion to feel the surfaces, put fingers through holes, interact physically with the text, which we are taught is, both abstractly and materially, a single surface only to be violated by experts. 

 

I very much feel the compulsion with "Attack." I can only report a kind of wonderment at the damage that has been inflicted on this paper. What brought the artist to this emotional state? What must it have been like to witness the creation of this work? And vitally important to anyone who encounters this work: Why was I chosen to receive this? Especially in mail-art, the recipient is likely to consider, what should my artist response be?

 

Even though her work has many avant garde elements, Cheryl Penn often employs fairly linear narrative to organize her work. Thus, at the end of "Attack" there is both a real and representational wound in the page, a gaping slash bound with stitches. This image can be found elsewhere in her work:

 

The wound can be viewed as either open (above) or closed (below). This provides a kind of closure or commentary on the raw emotional states documented earlier in the chapter. These experiences leave wounds, perhaps scars, that can manifest themselves in the mind, body, and spirit as well as upon the page. "Attack" also includes a redemptive element: the process of healing that can be achieved through both life and art.

 

Many thanks, Cheryl, for sharing this unusual and provocative example of your mail-art!

[De Villo Sloan]

J'espère que vous avez aimé les fleurs de cerisier. Je suisheureux de vous faire de l'art. La grande soeur est unepersonne très court. Elle est comme un chien courageux etféroce peu! Attaque mes chaussures!

[Marie Wintzer]

Bonjour mon cher, c'est la fleur de cerisier, comment allez vous aujourd'hui. J'ai fait beaucoup d'art hier, pour la grande soeur et pour le garçon lueur, je vais bientôt l'envoyer, je crois qu'ils vont bien aimer. Aujourd'hui je vais voir les vraies fleurs de cerisier.

[De Villo Sloan]

Ma chère, la grande soeur est anti-trashpo. Le garçon lueur serasauvé. Je sais que cela. Ces accès de colère bébé ne sont pasnécessaires. J'espère que vous êtes à nouveau en mesure de faire de l'art. Nous avons besoin de vérité et de beauté. Le garçon lueurà l'écoute de la bande Fluxus cycle moteur.

[Marie Wintzer]

DW, mon cher, c'est vous le poète ici, et vous êtes mon préféré... La grande soeur ne fera JAMAIS de la route qui tue!! Plutot mourir! :-))  La grande soeur et moi voulons sauver le garcon lueur du peuple poubelle et de la route qui tue. Croyez-vous que nous y arriverons? Voulez vous nous aider à sauver le garçon lueur? ....

(ps- le garcon lueur a dit que votre art est du non-art. Je ne suis pas d'accord avec lui).

[De Villo Sloan]

Mon cher, c'est de la poésie merveilleuse. Tu es ma fleur decerisier! Qu'est-il arrivé ici? La grande soeur a fait la route tuentdu garçon lueur? Je vais seulement faire de l'art belle pour toi,ma fleur de cerisier.

[Marie Wintzer]

She's gong ;-))

[De Villo Sloan]

cp-sa is "really off now" cb - ;)

[Marie Wintzer]

It's nice to share ideas here, thanks for making it such a cozy place Sloan...

CB = Cherry Blossom = me ;-))

CP-SA-Big Souer, take care in the skys, we're waiting for you...

[De Villo Sloan]

OK, Cheryl departed. She needed to. Who is CB? Marie, I think it's great you have that response. I've spent a lot of time thinking about "Attack" and it's great to have another perspective. My ideas aren't always completely formed here. And please, don't you EVER talk about ignorance. You're in the thick of this and exposed to all the same ideas and work, and you're coming to terms with it in your own work all the time. Mail-art holes - what could be more conceptual? I will say, especially with Fluxus people, I hear anti-art a lot, enough that I'm trying to figure it out. The thing about Cheerios dumped on the scanner as anti-art... maybe we can get into that some other place some other time. Remember, the Great Trashpo Summit is still going on. There's still that mess. It's been nice that we managed to get together to talk about "Attack" - given our situations at present.

[Marie Wintzer]

Sloan, that's interesting indeed. Ours views might differ on that one. I don't see DW's picture of cheerios as anti-art, and I don't see Cheryl's piece as anti-art. At all. In fact I see them as something like hyper-art. But I probably don't understand the concept of anti-art (my ignorance) in itself, and I problems with categorizing art. Even the concept of fluxus is still difficult for me.

Actually, I think this is very representative of Cheryl's work!

;-I