Ulises Carrión | The I want to be in your catalogue no matter what the theme of your project is Card

Ulises Carrión

The I want to be in your catalogue no matter what the theme of your project is Card

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Other Books and So Archive, 1982

4 x 6"

Edition size unknown

“One of Carrión’s last mail art projects, The I want to be in your catalogue no matter what the theme of your project is Card from 1982 could be interpreted as a sardonic dig at the “junk mail” and “quick-kopy crap” that dominated the mail art network in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The postcard did not invite responses, and this might be read as reflecting, Carrión’s dissatisfaction with the mailers networks model of collective authorship. It is equally possible however, the postcard was not just a humourous attempt to poke fun at the network, but an expression of earnest support for it. The very act of circulating the postcard (or any mail artwork) is what creates the network, and the gesture of participation is as important as, if not more important than, the content produced. “How can we measure the intention intensity of our knocking" Carrión and asked in 1978. His answer "by the echo reproduce, obviously.”

- Zanna Gilbert, Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond (see next post)

Valie Export exhibition invitations and posters

Valie Export celebrates her 84th birthday today. 

 

Yoko Ono turns 90 today.

Yoko Ono | A Hole to See the Sky (Fly)

Yoko Ono 

A Hole to See The Sky (from Fly)

London, UK: Apple Records, 1971

9.5 x 14.5 cm.

Edition size unknown

The second iteration of the A Hole to See The Sky card (that I'm aware of - if you know of others, please get in touch) served double-duty as a postcard in Ono's second LP Fly, and also functioned as an order-form for her artist book Grapefruit. 

Ono had self-published Grapefruit in Tokyo, using the imprint name Wunternaum Press, in 1964, in an edition of 500 copies. Simon & Schuster published an expanded edition in 1970. This postcard offers the book for $1.95. 

It came as part of the gatefold LP design for Fly, one of Ono's most celebrated solo records. The disc features the title track (the soundtrack of her film of the same name, see below, bottom) as well as the classic Ono songs Don't Worry Kyoko (about her kidnapped daughter) and Mindtrain (pinched years later by Stereolab, for their best song). 

The cover was designed by Fluxus impresario George Maciunas (his distinctive typefaces are the give-away) and also feature works by Fluxus artist Joe Jones.  

"I was always fascinated by the idea of making special instruments for special emotions – instruments that lead us to emotions arrived by their own motions rather than by our control. With those instruments, I wanted to explore emotions and vibrations which have not been explored as yet in music.

I thought of building a house on the hill which makes different sounds on a windy day by the wind that goes through different windows, doors and holes. 

Then I’ve met Joe Jones who’s been making such instruments for 10 years almost unnoticed. Joe built me 8 new instruments specially for this album which can play by themselves with minimum manipulation. (Turning switches only.)"

- Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono | A Hole To See The Sky Through

Yoko Ono

A Hole To See The Sky Through

Heidelberg, Germany: Edition Staeck,  1971

10 x 15 cm

Edition size unknown

While this card (the earliest iteration of the work in multiple format, that I'm aware of) dates the piece to 1971, elsewhere the work is credited to 1964 and even 1962. I'm not going to attempt a scholarly and comprehensive catalogue raisonné of the postcards, but over the next few entries I'll post other examples of the cards, as well as covers, tributes and parodies from other artists. 

The concept can be traced back to the 1961 score based work Painting to See The Skies, which asks the reader to 

Drill two holes into a canvas

Hang it where you can see the sky

(Change the place of hanging. 

Try both the front and the rear windows,

to see if the sky is different).

A Painting to See the Sky III proposes

See the sky between a woman's thighs.

See the sky between your own thighs. 

See the sky through your belongings by making holes in them. 

ie. pants, jacket, shirt, stockings, etc. 

The sky features prominently in Ono's work, something she shared with fellow Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks, whose painting she used for the cover of Plastic Ono Band: Live in Toronto (see below). Other examples include Key to Open the Skies, Sky Event for John Lennon, and the song "Sky People", from the 1985 LP Starpeace.

Sky Machine from 1965, is a coin-operated dispenser that produces handwritten cards with the word "Sky" printed on them. Ono said "I would like to see the sky machine on every corner of the street instead to the coke machine. We need more skies that coke."

Clouds, too, are a frequent motif in the artist's work. "Cloud Piece" from the artist book Grapefruit, invites the reader to

Imagine the clouds dripping. 

Dig a hole in your garden to put them in. 

The word 'imagine' and some of the other concepts in the book inspired John Lennon's signature song of the same name, and the above text features on the verso of Lennon's 1971 LP of the same name (designed by Ono's Fluxus friend George Maciunas). The text was later materialized into the object A Shovel to Dig a Hole for the Clouds to Drop In. 

Together Ono and Lennon made the little-seen film Apothesis, which features the artists and camera in a rising hot air balloon. As the camera ascends into the sky, the frame goes white for several minutes, testing the patience of the viewer. Those who remain are rewarded when the camera rises above the clouds and reveals the sun and a beautiful cloudscape. 

I'm wary of simplistic origin stories (Joseph Beuys and his downed plane leading to the use of fat and felt in his work, for example) but Ono recounts a time from her early childhood during World War 2 where she was hiding in a barn with her brother, homeless and hungry, after her family fled the city due to US bomber planes. She describes them laying on the floor of the barn looking up at the sky through a crack in the ceiling, discussing imaginary menus of food they wished they could eat, to stave off the hunger. 

This is likely an inspiration for the postcard work, and many other ideas and themes that run through her practice. It's a simple poetic conceptual proposal that facilitates looking at the world in a slightly different manner. 

Above is the original 1971 version, published by artist Klaus Staeck. Edition Staeck has published numerous postcards by artists, including Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Robert Filliou, Sigmar Polke, Ben Vautier, and Dieter Roth, who also responded to Ono's card (see future post).

Endre Tót | Look!! Here's a Giant Zero for you

Endre Tót

Look!! Here's a Giant Zero for you

Geneva, Switzerland: Ecart Publications, 1974

7 5/8″ X 4 5/8″

Edition of 500 signed and numbered copies

Alison Knowles and Pauline Oliveros | Postcard Theater

Pauline Oliveros (w/Alison Knowles)

Postcard Theater

New York City, USA: Aenjai Graphics, 1974

[6] pp., 10.5 x 14.5 cm., loose leaves

Edition size unknown

When Terry Riley's classic minimalist composition In C was performed for the first time in 1964, the composer and accordion player Pauline Oliveros was the only woman in the ensemble, performing alongside Riley, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Stuart Dempster, Morton Subotnick and Warner Jepson. The performance is regularly referred to as "seminal". 

Six years later, Oliveros contributed an article to the New York Times titled And Don't Call Them ‘Lady’ Composers, where she writes:

"Why have there been no “great” women composers? The question is often asked. The answer is no mystery. In the past, talent, education, ability, interests, motivation were irrelevant because being female was a unique qualification for domestic work and for continual obedience to and dependence upon men."1

Three years later after that she found herself having to make her point more clearly. For an article titled Divisions Underground2 for the Numus West journal3, Oliveros asked the question as a headline: "Why Haven't Women Composed Great Music?". A second headline counters: "Why Do Men Continue To Ask Stupid Questions?"

The article can be seen as a precursor to the Postcard Theater pieces she would produce a year later, both in its use of epithets and imagery. Accompanying the article is a photograph of a bust of Beethoven in a beret, his lipstick smeared. Following this is a list of over a hundred terms one might use to describe a woman: hooker, lady, queen, lesbian, girl, mother, daughter, bitch, harlot, nanny, gal, old maid, bridesmaid, matron, granny, old hen, etc. 

Beethoven Was A Lesbian was the first work Oliveros produced in the Postcard Theatre series. It features a black & white image of Oliveros sitting in a garden, reading. The book is the 1945 novel by Charles Williams It’s All Hallows’ Eve in which two deceased women roam around London. There's a scowl on Oliveros' face and to her right, another bust of Ludwig van Beethoven, this one seemingly made of papier-mâché. The card is captioned with the title. 

An additional five cards were made in collaboration with Fluxus artist Alison Knowles4. The artists both appear in the work, as do Knowles' twin daughters, alongside captions which make use of gendered and racist denigrating terms. 

Brahms Was a Two-Penny Harlot features Knowles at the beach and Oliveros with a toy dagger, both as children. Mozart was a Black Irish Washerwoman features Oliveros at the Zoo, atop an elephant.5 An image of Jessie Higgins with a flower is used for the Bach Was a Mother card. Chopin is domesticated with dishpan hands, with an image of Hannah and Jessie Higgins playing in Roaring Brook.5

By reframing famous male composers as marginalized figures (women, mothers, lesbians, Black, Irish) Oliveros and Knowles use a reimagined history to address unpleasant realities. 

Postcard Theater was reissued as a zine by Editions Acquaviva, Berlin, Germany, 2013 (see following post).

"My first postcard theatre in the 70s was a comment on the outsider status of women in the music world. Branding Beethoven as a lesbian was a way of turning the tables on the music establishment. I sent the card out to friends and to Alison Knowles. I invited her to join me in making a series of postcards that attribute epithets usually aimed at women to other composers of the traditional canon (...) this was a time about raising consciousness about women in music." 

- Pauline Oliveros

1. Decades later ex-Pixies player Kim Deal was asked when promoting her new band The Breeders (with Tanya Donnelly from Throwing Muses and Josephine Wiggs from Perfect Disaster) why there was a lack of female performers in indie rock. She replied "Women don't need to play in a band to get laid."

2. Both And Don't Call Them ‘Lady’ Composers and Divisions Underground can be found reprinted in the excellent Oliveros anthology Software For People: Collected Writings 1963 - 80. 

3. Canadian readers will find much to enjoy in this text, in which Oliveros writes about celebrating Juneteenth in Banff on the way to a teaching gig in Toronto (or "stick standing in the mud" or "the meeting place in Huron"). She describes walking in the Yonge Street mall as akin to John Cage's Theater Piece. 

4. Knowles, too, was aware of the lack of representation of women in the arts and shortly after this collaboration produced Womens Work with Annea Lockwood, and included Oliveros alongside Nye Ffarrabas, Simone Forti, Christina Kubisch, Ann Noël, Takako Saito, Carolee Schneemann, Mieko Shiomi, and many others. Primary Information reissued it two years ago in an edition of 1500 copies, and it is already sold out. 

5. The image would later be used as the cover graphic for Oliveros' 1984 LP The Wanderer. 

6. Hannah and Jessie Higgins are the daughters of Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins, who ran the Something Else Press together. Hannah Higgins is the author of Fluxus Experience, published in 2002 by the University of California Press and The Grid Book, which was published by MIT Press in 2009.