Artistamps

Artistamps

Artistamps Definition

“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.” - William Butler Yeats

You can tell a lot about a country by the stamps it produces, and as philatelists can tell you, study of these little government-sponsored art works can be revealing and fascinating business. But, since government issued postage stamps represent the height of government controlled art (after all, the powers that be commission, produce and distribute this art for almost compulsory consumption by the masses) how are artists that prefer to work and think outside of government controls going to respond to this state sponsored art? Oftentimes they respond with artist stamps (artistamps).

Government issued stamps place every subject within the context of the issuing country’s political and organization systems. In response to the formalism sometimes inherent in that context, artistamps sometimes contain activist slogans and parodies of "official" subjects.

Artistamps have an inherently political nature due to the play of formalism in the genre. However there is a flip side to that view which is whimsical and often deals with virtual worlds or fantasy lands. Artists may name their fantasy domains, "Republic of Bookgirl,” or the "Island of Mraur," for example. Sometimes they even create imaginary postal administrations and whole governments for these countries.

Artists who make these stamps sometimes have a complex relationship with the real mail systems of their own countries. Some place their work alongside real postage on mailed envelopes, often in attempts to get their stamps canceled by the official postal administration. On occasion this can be an overtly political act, but more often the artistamp is being included alongside the correct legitimate postage and there is not chance that the created stamp will be mistaken for the real thing. It can even become part of a larger piece of mail art.

Artistamp creators may make their works in limited editions or in multiples of single design sheets. They may play with the sheet concept altogether and decorate borders, make miniature sheets or use several designs on one sheet that comment on or influence each other. The stamp form becomes more free form in the hands of the artist. Artistamps are often made to resemble genuine postage stamps, complete with perforations, gum on the back of the paper or even self-adhesive backing (though this may not be truly archival). They may be created through rubber-stamping, offset-printing, lithography, etching, engraving or photocopying, or using computers and printers. Artists often created cancellations for their stamps and create first day of issue covers. Cyberstamps have begun to flourish in the age of the internet, often these are online only creation, not intended to become tangible, printed stamps; many include animation.

The first artistamp may have been created by dadaist Raould Hausmann in 1919, when he put a self-portrait stamp on a post card. But Jas Felter, curator of the first exhibition on the artistamp, claims that the first real set of artistamps were made in 1941 by German political prisoner Karl Schwesig. He created a series of images depicting life in a concentration camp, drawn with ink on the perforated margins of postage stamp sheets.

The first set of artistamps made for a fine art context was created by Fluxist Robert Watts when he made a block of 15 perforated stamps in 1961. The above mentioned 1974 artistamp exhibition, curated by Jas Felter gave rise to a more general public awareness of artistamps as well as a growth in the number of artists producing them. But artistamps weren’t even called by that name until 1982, when T Michael Bidner coined the term.

Artistamps are now impressively documented in literature, on the internet and within the walls of galleries. Catalogues, reference guides and websites can introduce the medium by artist or genre. These include works in progress such as the International Directory of Artistamp Creators, updated by James Warren Felter and the Standard Artist Stamp Cataloged which is being compiled by Bugpost.

And as the medium grows, so do collections and exhibitions. As Jas W. Felter puts it: “There have been exhibitions in national museums (Hungary, Switzerland, France), and recently Guy Bleus has issued a CD-ROM of his artistamp collection. Other major archives are found at Artpool in Budapest, the Anna Banana Archives in Sechelt, British Columbia, Chuck Welch's International Register of Artistamps, and my own Modern Realism Archives, which contains over 3,000 stamp sheets by 600 artists. Perhaps the largest public collection is at Oberlin College in Ohio, which obtained the artistamp archive of Harley. But almost every artistamp producer maintains his own collection, and there are impressive holdings in many areas of the world.”

∑ Some terms to use in researching artistamps: faux postage, fantasy stamps, labels, cinderellas, virtual worlds

Artistamps Resources

Mailartist.com

Mail artist’s page dealing with artistamps.

http://www.mailartist.com/kiyotei/artistamp.html

Artistamp Mailing List

The Artistamp Mailing List is is a resource for people interested in discussing, trading, teaching and learning about the art of creating Artistamps. Generally one-of-a-kind, and / or limited editions, artistamps are not intended to fool your local postal carrier, but are instead a miniature art form with specific guidelines / formats pertaining to the ability to create art in the form / size / shape of a postage stamp. If you are interested in the art of Donald Evans, Anna Banana, Steve Smith, etc, (and by association mail artists such as Chuck Welch, John Held, Ray Johnson and the New York Correspondence School) then this list is probably for you.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artistamp/

Open Directory Project Links Page for Artistamps

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Visual_Arts/Mail_Art_and_Artistamps/Artistamps/

International Directory of Artistamp Creators (IDAC)

Jas W Felter took a different approach to the subject in 1991. Focusing on the Artist rather than the Artistamp, he produced a directory of 72 artists who were creating Artistamps. Not satisfied, he continued to search the world for Artistamp creators, located a number of important Artistamp collections, gathered as many catalogues of Artistamp exhibitions as possible and surveyed more Artistamp creators. With this data he edited the first edition of the International Directory of Artistamp Creators in 1993. The burst of Artistamp activity since then and the location of older catalogues of Artistamp exhibitions created the need for a second edition. This directory, like the publications described above, is an indispensable locus for understanding the medium and locating its practitioners.

http://jas.faximum.com/library/jas_idac.htm

Notes Towards a History of Artistamps

John Held jr’s article on artistamp history.

http://www.terra.es/personal3/tartarug/library/ref006.htm

Artistamps

An article on the history of artistamps by Jas W. Felter, who curated the first artistamp show in 1974.

http://www.terra.es/personal3/tartarug/library/ref007.htm

You Know the Way to Mail Art – Philately

Humorous list linking a history of mail art moments and anecdotes to philately.

http://www.mailart.be/Philately.html

Moscow Artistamp Collective

http://artistamp.artinfo.ru/default.htm

Artistamp Artists

International Directory of Artistamp Creators

This is the directory’s artist page with an a-z list of international producers and links to pages decribing the work of each artist, these pages also have links to the artist’s individual websites on occaision as well as links to further pages in the directory showing examples of the artist’s work. The directory’s main home page also has a “producers” page.

A few links to individual artistamp makers:

Michael Hernandez de Luna

http://www.badpressbooks.com/mhdl.html

Michael Thompson

http://www.badpressbooks.com/mt.html

Jas Felter

http://jas.faximum.com/library/idac/idac_art.html

Anna Banana

http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~sn0958/

http://www.bigpacific.com/anna_banana/

John Held

http://www.mailartist.com/johnheldjr/

Ray Johnson

See links listed in Mail Art section

T. Micheal Bidner

http://www.artpool.hu/Artistamp/Artistampex/Bidner_e.html

buZ blurr

http://res.npcc.edu/bbutler/buz.htm

Dana Atchley

http://www.nextexit.com/attic/trunkframeset.html

Alyce Cornyn-Selby

http://www.justalyce.com/stamp.htm

Bugpost (aka Dominique Johns)

http://home.comcast.net/~bugpost/bugstuff/stamps/stampframe.html

Donald Evans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Evans_(artist)

http://www.artnet.com/artist/5918/donald-evans.html

Jas W. Felter

http://jas.faximum.com/

William “Picasso” Gaglione

http://www.deluxxe.com/stampland/

Michel Hosszu

http://www.mheditions.com/index.php?newlang=english

Sandy Jackson

http://jas.faximum.com/library/idac/idac_1842.html

Denis P. Jordan

http://www.telisphere.com/~djordan/

Clemente Padin

http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/padin/lcp3x0.htm

Steve Smith/Art Gone Postal

http://www.artgonepostal.com/

Carolyn Substitute

http://www.carolynsstampstore.com/

Dragonfly Dream

http://www.dragonflydream.com/Artistamps.html

Carl T. Chew

http://ctchew.com/ctchew.html

Red Ant

http://www.postmarkarts.com/artistamps.html

Natalie Lamanova

http://sewers.artinfo.ru/cv/cv.htm

Artistsamp Shows

"Motherland/Fatherland" Artistamp Exhibition

The Moscow International Forum of Art Initiatives, Moscow State Exhibition Hall "Novy Manege" July 11-21, 2002 co-curators of artistamp exhibition: Natalie Lamanova, Russia, Alexander Kholopov, Russia, James Felter, Canada http://sewers.artinfo.ru/cv/mafa.htm

Consciousness Unfolded: Mail Art for the 21st Century

This dynamic exhibition invites artist to submit work via the postal service creating a network of communication that provides an insightful dialogue that investigates the direction the book/codex/scroll/card is taking form and purpose in the 21st millennium.

http://www.centerforbookarts.org/exhibits/archive/showdetail.asp?showID=167

Artpool’s List of Events 1979-1991

Artpool’s list of multiple shows and events from that era, with some links

http://www.artpool.hu/events79-91.html

Post Modern Post

A show of artistamps from 2003 at the Sonoma County Museum in California

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/03.13.03/stamps-0311.html

ParaStamp: From Fluxus to the Internet

A show of four decades of artistamps, held in Budapest from March 23-June2, 2007.

http://www.artpool.hu/Artistamp/Para/Stamp00.html

Multiplitiy/Multiplicidad

Large retrospective of artistamp archives. SOMArts San Francisco, July 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddjQAfr5fr0

Artistamp Literature

Herbert, Martin. "Post War", Artforum International, May 2007: Article on Steve McQueen's Queen and Country comminssioned by London's Imperial War Museum. Example of: Political Art

Crane, Michael and Soffle, Mary ed., Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity, Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1984.

Artistamp Production Techniques

How to make Artistamps

So you want to make artistamps?

A helpful page of links to many artmaking tutorials

http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~benm/stamps/artistamps.html

Mail Art and Artistamps

The articles at this website were previously at Aisling.net. They include how-to tips and instructions, as well as free downloads, samples of mail art, and links.

http://www.mailartists.com/artistamps.htm

Knoph

A very good introduction to Artistamps. A must read for those who are new to the list and just starting out in the field.

http://www.knoph.com/AMLnewB

Create an essay stamp design appropriate for a specific country. Use correct text based on your knowledge of the country's language and postal conventions.

Create a sheet format of whimsical artistamps from a fantasy country or no country at all. Create several designs for a multiple design sheet.