Perneczky, Géza.

[CONCEPTUAL ART – ARTISTS' BOOKS – HUNGARIAN NEO-AVANT-GARDE] International Stamps. Nos. 1 and 2 (all published).

[Cologne]: self-published, 1980–1981. Quartos (29.8 × 21 cm). Original staple-stitched printed wrappers; each [16] pp. with one stamp per leaf. Wrappers of vol. 2 somewhat stained and toned; else very good. Item #54583

One of 365 numbered and signed copies of this artist's edition. About his stamp art, the Hungarian conceptualist writes: "In 1973 I started to experiment with the artistic use of rubber stamping also known from office work under the influence of my Czech friend, Jiri H. Kocman. In the ‘70s rubber stamp art became an important medium for me. At that time this technique was discovered by the most diverse alternative trends such as Mail Art, but the works made by them kept their palm size, their miniature format appropriate for rubber stamps. As for me, at the beginning of the ‘80s I started thinking about using this popular technique in ‘grande art’ and expand it to a ’monumental’ genre. (...) The first artists’ stamps were designed by the neo-dadaist FLUXUS-artists. They too were the first to try to fool the post services with their stamps. Since then, the art-form has become slightly more subdued, but above all, it has swollen up into a far wider stream. Owing to the fact that the FLUXUS-artists have left the scene, today’s artists’ stamps are produced by the representatives of the so called Mail Art movement. Many members of this movement design stamps made and reproduced by various techniques; even larger is the number of those, who receive these stamps with other Mail Art-creations – tiny prints, collages, etc.- through the post, and sort them, classify them, put them into boxes, carefully file them, in other words – collect them. As we can see, the artists’ stamp is not identical with Mail Art as an art-form in general, as it is a more confined genre with origins that date back to a much earlier point in time. Nevertheless, it is a fact that today, artists’ stamps are produced and circulated almost exclusively in Mail Art-circles." (ht tps : // ww w. gezaperneczky. de/oeuvre/rubber-stamp-art. ht ml, 30th August 2024)

As of August 2024, OCLC lists three copies in North America.