Received: Mail-art from conceptual artist Ptrzia TICTAC (Starnberg, Germany)

[De Villo Sloan]

September 23, 2010: Ptrzia (TICTAC) sent me a wonderful package reflecting her identity as a a conceptual artist, and I feel a real affinity for what she is doing. I'm just finishing reading "Fluxus Experience" by Hannah Higgins (University of California Press 2002). I picked this book because Higgins is the daughter of Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins: two central figures of the "old" Fluxus, the original movement. You can access the current movement today if you like right here at the IUOMA. I thought she might bring some insight into the history of this whole thing, given she grew up in the middle of it and later studied it. Dick Higgins was publisher of Something Else Press; and that material stayed in circulation for a long time. In the book, Higgins writes about concept art and conceptual art. I'm going to present some quotes that bear directly on tictac's work. Hannah Higgins writes:

CONCEPT ART

"Sometime Fluxus participant Henry Flynt coined the term concept art in 1963: Concept art is first of all an art of which the material is concepts, as the material of, e.g. music, is sound. Since concepts are closely bound up with language, concept art is a kind of art of which the material is language. The term's applicability to Fluxus seems obvious: it is particularly well suited to the Event score, a textual presentation of a concept that may or may not have a performative dimension (as in Nam June Paik's score 'climb into the vagina of a live whale.') Given that some of the first conceptual art was produced by Fluxus artists in the form of event scores, and the term coined by a Fluxus associate, the nearly total absence of Fluxus from almost all histories of conceptual art is remarkable."

CONCEPTUAL ART

Higgins quotes Robert Morgan from "Idea, Concept, System": Conceptual art as a term and phenomenon in the New York art world in the late '60s was a mainstream affair. On the other hand, the term 'concept art' comes from an entirely different vantage point, much earlier on, a point which was acknowledged in the '80s by [conceptual artist] Sol Lewitt. The Fluxus movement, largely instigated and organized through the efforts of George Macunias between 1961 and 1963, is where the earlier notion of 'concept art' took hold. .. This is not to suggest a cause and effect relationship; but some major conceptualists have, when pressed, admitted that Fluxus did constitute a 'proto-conceptual' movement."

Higgins writes: "Lippard suggests that conceptual art, which met with comparative commercial success, used formally minimal styles of representation. Indeed, most histories of conceptual art describe the movement in modernist terms as a reaction, realized through a formal reduction of means, to abstract expressionism."

This is the history and core ideas. Like Fluxus, conceptual art has evolved, developed, and come a long way. Higgins did this at the University of Chicago as, I think, a dissertation, so it's academic; but it does really frame TICTACS's work, I think. You have the "formally minimal." You have the link back to "concept art" and the use of "the material of language." Anyway, that was pretty intense. Her is the envelope with these amazing stamps and images:

Below is another example of TICTAC's conceptual art. I believe Julian Grant received this too:

Look at this great stuff!

TICTAC was the recipient of one of the editions of my ill-fated "decadence of jade-ar" series. I included a page from Raymond Chandler's pulp-high art-classic detective story "The Big Sleep." I have received the strangest responses to this, I thought this an insignificant part of jade-ar. This is real vintage noir stuff from the 1930s. I think Chandler is just an amazing stylist. It absolutely reveals the misogyny present throughout most American literature. That was part of the point too. tictac sent it back with a very kind note because it was a Friday night and there I was stuffing envelopes, and I wrote her some exhausted messages and she replied:

Well tictac, I'm pretty much grounded for the rest of my life. She also included one of these add-and pass sheets that fascinate me:

tictac has several blogs where you can see different aspects of her works and work by her friends. The blog immediately below is my favorite. This has videos of her, what I will call, artist-book-assemblages. One example that I like particularly is "dreams are made of plastic (book 3/3)." In the video she goes through the piece page by page. tictac makes all kinds of different use of plastic items. Also on this blog, if you scroll down, is a single print or photo entitled "Silhouette." This demonstrates the range of her work and below it is a link to a journal called "discharge6." (I was right at home because I used to publish in an NYC zine called Emotional Vomit.) The intro. text of "discharge" states it is not Da Da, but similar to Da Da; it is not Fluxus, but similar to Fluxus. I'm not sure what it is, but I think the work in "discharge" is very, very interesting and recommend it to you if you are at all interested in the avant areas mentioned:

http://tictac-tictac.blogspot.com

Tictac posts mail art by her friends at the blog below, and there is a lot of impressive work to see:

http://tac-tictac.blogspot.com/

Thank you so much tictac! I'm glad we are friends.

[cheryl penn]

Useful Man (Paul Eluard)

You can't work anymore. You dream,
Eyes open, hands open
In the wilderness
In the wilderness that plays
With the animals-the useless ones

After the order, after the disorder
In the flat fields, the empty forest
In the sea heavy and clear
An animal goes by-and your dream
Is really stillness dreaming

(Translation by David Guss)

[De Villo Sloan]

As promised earlier in a conversation with TICTAC, I have transcribed the results of our collaborative creation of a poem based on Chapter 7 of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep":

I HOPE YOU CAN GO OU

Because it had a low beamed
nose with carved gargoyles

at the corners with nice nice earrings
on it had a profile like an

eagle and its round flashbulb clipped
to the front shone brightly and

blinked and said, "Let's take a little walk,"
and bubbled.

[De Villo Sloan]

Hi TICTAC, I agree. The research team is working on the The Big Sleep text right now. That is so cool we both had encountered Chandler at the same time. I also liked the passage you and I are deconstructing because it's all about a picture being taken of the scene. So - conceptually have a photo inside a text that is extremely photographic in written style, it's not even light out yet. I'll be maybe more coherent at some point. I was just so glad to hear from you. Thanks again.

[Ptrzia (TICTAC)]

Hi DVS
thank you for posting my message I was going to ask for your blessing to do it myself after you opened the comment section. I think comments and their extensions are always positive; they celebrate thoughts and opinions, concordant or not, specially when under the light of respect.
I love conceptual comments, they offer more divagations.. :-))
I am curious to know what you found in my highlights...

[De Villo Sloan]

TIC TAC - thanks for the comment and especially for telling me that you highlighted the lines in The Big Sleep. I saw it. As you can gather, I was so tired when I put that together, I wasn't sure if I highlighted the text. I did in several of the editions. Now I will go back and look with great interest. Thanks again

[De Villo Sloan]

TIC TAC sent me this message, which I'm posting here:

"concept art is a kind of art of which the material is language" so right. The material does the talking through the shape it takes. I find it difficult to plan in advance, so I just work my idea while I am at it, because the material often 'interferes' and takes me to another direction...even thoughthe original idea is still there but has more personality, as if it has followed unconsciously an inner dialogue between artist and material. Because sometimes it is the material inspiring the idea. I hope I am expressing myself correctly. I am conceptual person and also an artist. Communicating the essence is what counts, not the perfection. And possibly with irony...as a spice. Also to humble down, because of perspective. :-)
And talking about irony...It is the pic of a graffiti I found in Munich I made a serial of it, all originals with different images and quotes. and regarding The Big Sleep I sent you a conceptual message in the highlighted lines.....my reason why Jade ar is now killing you..:-))