Item #54394 [LATIN AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE – MAIL ART – COUNTERCULTURE – GINNY LLOYD] Small archive of mail art by Leonhard Frank Duch for the journal “Intermedia: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Arts, Resources & Communication" and for the important copy and computer artist Ginny Lloyd. 15 works. Leonhard Frank Duch.

Duch, Leonhard Frank.

[LATIN AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE – MAIL ART – COUNTERCULTURE – GINNY LLOYD] Small archive of mail art by Leonhard Frank Duch for the journal “Intermedia: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Arts, Resources & Communication" and for the important copy and computer artist Ginny Lloyd. 15 works.

Recife, Brazil, 1978–1980. Various formats (from 15.3 × 10.5 to 58 × 38 cm, but mainly ca. 31 × 22 cm). Mainly very good; only a few, rather incidental specimen copies (one journal) toned, stained, with traces of use and tears in the margins; the original works (collages) somewhat musty, but else about very good. Item #54394

Group of fifteen works by Berlin-born Brazilian mail art artist Leonhard Frank Duch (b. 1940), noteworthy in particular for its recipients, who give an impression of the networking strategies of the international avant-gardes and the interactions between North and South. At the same time, this exchange enabled Brazilian subversive art to deal aesthetically with the restrictive and dangerous situation under the military dictatorship, which is documented here pars pro toto. The group contains two different groups for different recipients. The first group consists of cover designs with the title “I AM AN ARTIST” and two handwritten texts for the journal “Intermedia: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Arts, Resources & Communication": two handwritten postcards, both stamped, one of them inscribed and with a mounted newspaper article. Also nine loose Xerox sheets, one of which is inscribed, and two glued collages of different Xerox copies; eight of them stamped by Duch, mostly repeatedly. Furthermore, a Xerox copy mounted on cardboard and labeled by Duch himself. The second group consists on the one hand of the Xerox artist's book “A arte no meu caminho”, comprising ten single-sided printed leaves (including cover), and on the other of a printed version of the photographic series on the cover of “Contexto: suplemento especial de ‘A República’”. The recipient of the second group was presumably the important copy and computer artist Ginny Lloyd. Both the first and second groups are accompanied by an A-4 postal envelope inscribed, addressed and stamped by Duch.

The designs for the cover of the ninth issue of the art journal “Intermedia” presented here were part of a planned issue on counterculture and art in Latin America, which never materialized. The editor Harley Lond ceased publication of the magazine after the seventh issue and eventually had to sell his archive with the works for the planned issue in the 1990s, so that the letters, collages, reproductions etc. sent in were scattered to the four corners of the earth. The journal, inspired by Dick Higgins' “Statement on Intermedia”, was published in San Francisco from 1974 to 1979. The first issue contained, among other things, a listing of art services, organizations, small print shops and free classified ads for artists in addition to texts and image contributions by artists. Lond formulated the claim of his venture, which was precariously financed with simple part-time jobs, thus: "The vacuum in which artists have struggled for years is now being filled by a host of political and economic organizations striving to create a stronger representation and voice for artists everywhere. There is almost a grassroots movement amongst artist to take control over their destinies in the econo/political facets of capitalist society. (…) One of the goals of Intermedia is to link the new art movement with these other alternative movements—to create a unified alternative force of artists, writers, workers, and radicals. (…) We want Intermedia to be by and for artists, to be a forum for artists’ concerns and needs, to be a mode of interdisciplinary communications between the artist and the alternative learning people, radicals, communicators, and especially a mode of communication between artists of different media." (Website of Intermedia Magazine).

From this perspective, Duch, as a representative of an art that positioned itself against the Brazilian military dictatorship, was the right candidate to open the planned Latin American special issue. His texts to "Intermedia" outline in clear and extremely concise sentences what his collages are about and what is also said with the stamp “I AM AN ARTIST": "Dear Intermedia, actually all my mail art works are based in our cultural reality. 'I am an artist' means to be in anguish in agony. It's dangerous in our country to be an artist. And I am an artist! This I must say crying: I am an artist!!! I assume the responsability to be an artist."

The addressee of his artist's book “A arte no meu caminho” is no less interesting. Ginny Lloyd is one of the pioneers of copy art and computer art; both genres were closely linked to mail art in her work. Her circle of recipients was not limited to the globe. In the 1980s, for example, she was involved in a project entitled “Space: The Frontier Gallery”, in which a microchip filled with works of art was installed in a rocket. Her prints were also on board two manned space missions. Lloyd learned programming languages early on so that she could use computers for her image production. She not only used her ability for her artistic practice, but also for joint projects with computer companies, for example. Lloyd was one of the protagonists of a new, technologically applied art that was involved in technical research and development.