Fluxus and Mail Art |
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Yamflug stamp sheets were created by Robert Watts in 1963 and 1964.
Yve Klein’s famous Blue Stamp was an early precedent for artistamps.
The stamps were made available not only as sheets, but in stamp-dispensing machines; a dime bought two stamps (or one of the oversize "Safe Post" rectangulars).
The Yam activities were themselves an aspect of Fluxus, the first concerted effort to bring together various of those artists helping to create the new sensibility into something like a movement. Besides the Yam events, Fluxus sponsored many performances and situations, in New York and Europe, during its "golden age" of concentrated activity (1962-67).
At least as important were the publications and multiple objects published by Fluxus mastermind George Maciunas for various of his compeers. Among the most intriguing and challenging of the Fluxus boxes and printed material are a goodly number of group efforts, collations by Maciunas of contributions in various formats by various artists. The one especially relevant to the topic at hand is the 1966-67 Fluxus Postal Kit. Like most of the Fluxus multiples the Kit is a handsomely and cleverly designed object-anthology, the contents of which vary from copy to copy. Three items are in every copy:
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The box containing the kit, bearing a photo of a mailbox on its front;
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Various sheets of Watts stamps …
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And an Official Fluxus Cancellation Stamp (containing the legend "Inconsequential is Coming") by Ken Friedman, perhaps the first artist's stamp-cancel. Some Kits also contain a Ben Vautier rubber stamp ("Ben certifies this to be a work of Flux-art"),
Peter Frank, "Postal Modernism," in World Art Post. Budapest: Artpool, [198-?]