Existing comment:
György Galántai (b. 1941, Hungarian) and Anna Banana, aka Anna Lee Long (b. 1940, Canadian)
"Please Send Me Information About Your Activity" poster mailer to Gregory Battcock, 1978
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This poster mailer documents a collaboration between Canadian artist Anna Banana and Hungarian artist György Galántai, while also acting as an open call to artists from around the world. Banana and Galántai first became acquainted with each other through the mail art network. Due to restrictive laws that suppressed the public exhibition of "unofficial art" in Soviet Hungary, mail art became an important means of sharing work within and outside Galántai's country. In opposition to official culture, he and his wife, Julia Klaniczay, started Artpool in 1979 -- an "active archive" that specialized in both the design and production of unsanctioned works. More than a repository of documents, Artpool aimed to be generative. In Galántai's words: "The archive expands through calls for projects, co-operation and exchange as well as circulating information and enlarging the network." This mailer exemplifies this methodology. When folded, it bears a faint red stamp that reads "Please Send Me Information About Your Activity." However, when unfolded, we see Galántai's brightly colored works on the one side, and photographs and texts about Banana's performance in Budapest on the other. As part of this event, Banana read a Hungarian text by András Bán about Galántai's work, even though Banana could only speak English. The mailer thus stresses the performative nature of archives and their ability to traverse (rather than reinforce) cultural, institutional, and national borders.
-- Mary Savig |