Thinking out loud

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

I am a little surprised by the widespread practice of altering and distorting the sent artifact. I know that this was the practice of the first masters of this direction, and I understand the theoretical premises of Correspondence Art, and nevertheless, this custom somewhat repels me.

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

Dear Predrag, I am only talking about a case of contamination/distortion of my own artwork, which then comes back to me. This is only about this, and about nothing else.

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

Dear Patricia, Mel Anie and Predrag, thanks for Your response! My thinking out loud are does not always hope for an answer from space.

Melanie, I agree that the contamination/distortion of an artwork is a specific search for an artistic conversation. I believe that our exchange of remarks and laughter is no less valuable artistic conversation (for example, You find all this funny, and I appreciate Your sense of humor, because it seems funny to me).

I believe that the desire to strike up an artistic conversation is realized not IN someone else's artistic work, but BEYOND it. However, I will refrain from polemics, since a person either accepts the laws of Mail Art or does not accept them. I accept these laws, especially since contamination/distortion is not, as I said, a big problem for me; rather, distortion somewhat repels me.

[PATRICIA LANDON]

My initial response is one of shock,I'm going to have think this through.

[Mel Anie]

Dear Ilya, this made me laugh - and to an extent, I agree with you. I often invite people to alter my work because I'm interested in seeing what happens next. But, I don't alter any mailed artwork unless I've been invited to do that (although I do alter envelopes without asking!?).

If someone alters your work and sends it back to you, maybe they are trying to have an artistic conversation? But, if you don't like what they have done - and I don't often like it when someone alters my work without asking - you can choose to end the correspondence.  

PS. I am still chuckling. 

[Predrag Petrovic]

Ilya !

I know what you mean ! Sometimes it really can be that way. I received too many arttworks of low quality, or simply ''rubbish'' quality, some of it is heavily distorted or, better to say, changed. It is normal practise in the world of mail art. For all these years (I started with mail art somewhere in 1987) I received probably too many ''distorted'' and ''changed'' artworks... Simply, my room would become overcrowded with all that paper junk, so I had to keep just what I really like. All other stuff I carefuly recycle into my collages, using the ''usable'' parts, and the rest is going to rubbish. Simply as that. Too much fancy-schmancee art these days! One thing is for sure: I always answer all ''incoming'' letters, and if I don't like something, I write back about what I dont like to that particular person. That way you save lot of time and effort !

At the end, well known is saying ''We could afford to be as choosy as we wanted to be''