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GDR Mail Art in the classroom
- 1. Mail Art in the GDR – A Critical Thinking Exercise Marcel P. Rotter University of Mary Washington
- 2. Mail Art – The Inter-Net of the 1960-80? • Sending small scale (mostly two-dimensional) art works through the mail service • Grew out of the Fluxus movement of the 1950s and 60s • Ray Johnson: New York Correspondence School 1962 • Later global movement, peaked in the 1980s, still present today • lost its popularity due to increasingly restrictive standardization of mail services worldwide advent of the Internet • Certain forms of Mail Art continue to exist electronically such as Internet memes. • Commonly two-dimensional (paper, fabric, plastic sheets, slides) • Can also include three-dimensional small-scale art pieces, music, sound art. • Most popular art forms: collages of found or recycled images and objects, rubber stamps, and paint • Collages can be sent as originals openly on postcards or in envelopes, or they can be copied (photographed, photo-copied), which facilitates the wide distribution of the artifact.
- 3. Democratic, networked character • Circumvents official art distribution and approval systems (art market, museums, and galleries) • Network as the primary way of sharing their work • Community embraces outsider or alternative status • Any Mail artists can call for a thematic mail art project • submissions can be shown in (often un-juried) exhibitions • Organizer of the project makes the submissions available to all participants (catalog or distribution of original Mail Art pieces) • Mail Art is about interpersonal communication, exchange, creation of a virtual community of equal participants • ☛ Mail Art can be seen as anticipating the networked, de-centralized cyber communities of the Internet.
- 4. Mail Art in the GDR • Un-supervised, truly democratic art form was suspicious to the centralized government of East Germany • National and international mail service in the GDR was a daily necessity. It could be scrutinized (especially for well-known opponents of the regime), but it could not be shut down. • East-German mail art gives us rare insides into the multi-faceted opposition movement of the GDR • 1980s copying technology in West Germany not in East Germany typewriters and mimeograph machines were registered by the state, xerography was unavailable only 16% of East Germans had a telephone • these (photographed) collages one of few opportunities to express one’s opposition to the state publicly
- 5. GDR Mail Artist • Joseph Huber • Birger Jesch • Lutz Wohlrab • Jürgen Gottschalk • Johannes Beleites
- 6. Examples of GDR Mail Art
- 7. Pollution • Water and air pollution • Atomic power plants (only two: Greifswald, Dresden) and Uranium mining – especially after Three Mile Island accident 1979 and Tschwernobyl 1986
- 10. Paramilitary Training • Integrated from Kindergarten on (visits to military units, textbooks, “Manöver” games) • Shooting as part of PhysED • In 9th grade: Zivilverteidigungslager (5 weeks incl. shooting) since 1979 • In college: 5 weeks military camp (incl. shooting) • The fear of WWIII after SS-20 and Natodoppelbeschluss
- 12. Einkommen und Ausgaben in Ost und West DDR BRD Einkommen- Industrie 1292.00 3657.00 Einkommen- Gewerbe 1134.00 2893.00 Prices Brot 0.52 3.17 Fleisch(Rind) 9.80 17.19 Butter 9.60 8.60 Kaffee (Bohnen) 70.00 17.86 Strumpfhose 14.00 5.23 Waschmaschine 2300.00 981.00 Farbfernseher 4900.00 1538.00 Straßenbahnfahrt 0.20 2.07 Brief 0.20 0.80 Miete(2-3 Zimmer, Küche, Bad Zentralheizung, Neubau) 75.00 411.00
- 13. Joseph Huber
- 14. Organization of Retail in the GDR HO (Handelsorganisation) 40% Konsum 37% Private Shops (Bakeries, Butchers, Pubs, Coffee Shops) 23% Delikat (Groceries) Exquisit (Clothing) Intershop (Valuta Shop) $ £ ¥ DM
- 15. Joseph Huber
- 16. Comforts in East and West
- 19. Mail Art Today
- 20. Forrest is a community, not commodity
- 21. People who will not sustain…
- 22. Why (GDR) Mail Art in the U.S. Classroom? • Part of German cultural history • Fine tuning of German language skills (less words, more play with meaning) • Development of critical thinking skills • Motivation
- 23. How to get your students working? • Show examples of GDR Mail Art • Guide students to understanding of context of the 1980s In Europe (NATO-Doppelbeschluss, Club of Rome paper, …) In both East and West Germany (Friedensbewegung, Umweltbewegung / Die Grünen) In the East in particular (Glasnosts, Perestroika, Mauer, military training in schools) • Assign Mail Art projects: Free choice? From a check list Give set of images and/or vocabulary
- 24. A guided approach 1. What are problems around you? Identify, at least, three! 👉 👉 👉 2. What is your position vis-à-vis one of these problems? (pointing out a contradiction, offering a solution, …) 3. What words and images would fit to describe the problem and your position? (Find, at least, five!) 4. What rhetorical devices would be appropriate (Alliteration, Chiasm, Rhyme, …) to express your position? In the world In our Country In our state In our town In our school In our class 5. Create your mail art piece by making a collage, or use an Internet meme creator!
- 25. UMW - Student Work Topics: • New University Center with dining facilities • Other campus issues (dorms, buildings) • Health and beauty • Environmental Issues • War and Peace Additional topics for your classroom: • Bullying • Religious tolerance • School-related topics
- 26. New University Center Dining Facilities
- 33. Other Campus-specific Issues Cockroaches in dorm Presidency
- 37. Health & Beauty
- 41. Environment
- 46. Es gibt keinen PLANet B
- 48. War and Peace
- 49. Frieden nicht Krieg; Warum haben wir das Wort "Frieden", wenn wir es nicht verwenden.
- 50. Other Topics Childhood Fun Electioniering “Adulting” Racism International Politics Same-Sex Marriage Inmate numbers
Notes de l'éditeur
- Any Mail artists can call for a thematic mail art project. The resulting submissions can be shown in (often un-juried) exhibitions. The organizer of the project makes the submissions available to all participants through either a catalog or through distribution of original Mail Art pieces. At its core, mail art is about interpersonal communication, exchange and the creation of a virtual community of equal participants. In this way, mail art can be seen as anticipating the networked, de-centralized cyber communities of the Internet. Due to its de-centralized character, Mail Artifacts are rarely part of public collections. Most Mail Art is in private archives, and, since the majority of artists is still alive, not very easily accessible. Sporadically, pieces come into collections through the estate acquisition of artists who occasionally participated in Mail Art (for example Andy Warhol at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles).
- It is obvious even for the outsider that an un-supervised, truly democratic art form must have been seen with suspicion by the centralized government of communist East Germany. On the other hand, national and international mail service in the was a daily necessity. It could be scrutinized (especially for well-known opponents of the regime), but it could not be shut down. Therefore, East-German mail art provides us with rare insides into the multi-faceted opposition movement of the GDR. Given the fact that in the 1980s copying technology typical at the time for West Germany were hard to access (typewriters and mimeograph machines were registered by the state, xerography was unavailable) and only 13% of East Germans had a telephone, these (photographed) collages were one of the few opportunities to express one’s opposition to the state and be seen by a larger audience. As is the case for mail art collections elsewhere, East German collections are almost exclusively private. However, the State Museum of Schwerin, Germany, has acquired the incredible large collection of East German graphic designer and Mail Artist Joseph Huber in 2001 shortly before Huber committed suicide, possibly as late effect of the Stasi oppression. It complements the museum’s world-famous Fluxus collection with the largest number of works by Marcel Duchamp at its center. The Huber collection is neither cataloged nor inventoried. When I inquired before a visit last year how many artifacts or, at least, archival boxes of artifacts the collection contains, the curator could not give me a number. While spending two weeks last August at the museum, I had unrestricted access to all materials. I photographed about 6.000 artifact, which covers approximately one third of the collection. While the curator prepared for an exhibition, I was able to advise her of possible artifacts to include as even she did not know what she had in her depot.