Don't be chicken of chickens. Film them and discover how fascinating they are. Here is a bunch living in Augsburg, South-Germany which I happen to encounter in May 2009. Notice the Chief who comes into action a few times in the end of the fim.
Ruud Janssen (b. Tilburg July 29, 1959) is a Dutch Fluxus and mail artist currently living in Breda in the Netherlands.
Ruud Janssen studied Physics and Mathematics. He became active with mail art in 1980 and did several international mail art projects. From 1994 till 2002 he has conducted interviews with Fluxus and mail artists in different communication forms; the results have been published in booklets and on the internet since 1996. In later years he focused more on acrylic painting and individual correspondences. He always maintains his site with the latest details of his work.
Janssen publishes articles, magazines and booklets with his TAM-Publications and participates in international mail art projects, collaborations and exhibitions. He founded IUOMA (International Union of Mail-Artists) in 1988 and is also the curator of the TAM-Rubberstamp Archive, the result of a Mail Art collection that has been accumulated by him from 1983 till now. The archive contains prints, original rubberstamps, magazines and literature. It is the longest time a mail art project has run ever (details see link to latest online catalogue). In 1994 he started with his Mail-interviews which have been published as booklets and online. The interviews have a new concept where the question is sent in a specific communicationform and the interviewed person chooses his own way to get the answer back. This way the factor time is involved in each specific interview. Samples of interviewed persons are: Ray Johnson, Dick Higgins, Ken Friedman, Anna Banana, Mark Bloch, Patricia Tavenner, Michael Leigh, Alison Knowles and Guy Bleus. Since 2008 the mail-interviews appear in a series of six books.
In 2003 Litsa Spathi founded together with Ruud Janssen the Fluxus Heidelberg Center for which they are building up a collection of Fluxus material and where they also publish their own works.
I am putting up a selection of the artists' postcards created especially for A Book About Death collaborative project up at the Queens Museum of Art as one of a trio of exhibitions celebrating the Day of the Dead. The exhibition opens on November 1st and runs through November 15. A reception will be held on November1st from 3 to 6pm.
Selections from "A Book About Death" is an artists' collaborative project conceived by collage artist Matthew Rose (an American living and working in Paris) for the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York City where the original exhibition took place from September 10 - 22, 2009. Over 500 artists contributed 500 postcards each created from artworks made especially to create an unbound book about death in homage to Ray Johnson (father of mail art), a celebration of Emily Harvey, and a global exploration of how we celebrate memory and death. The only requirement was to include the words "a book about death" somewhere on the card. Since then, the exhibition has traveled to the Otis College of Art and Design in LA, and to the Mobius Gallery in Boston, MA, as well as becoming part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the LA County Museum of Art Research Library. The Queens Museum is presenting a selection of cards from the exhibition and are also asking the community, in an artist-led workshop, to create their own postcard about death and add it to the exhibition.
To be included in this exhibition, make a postcard and send it to: L. Weinberg, Queens Museum of Art, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY 11368.
Thanks and looking forward to seeing some great work.
ruud, hi - the patterson photos are made in wiesbaden 2002 (the b&w maria xmas), performance photos (atelier) in hannover 2006, and the "darker" ones with david berlin 2007. i try to lift up more fluxus performance photos... best, marc
Hello RUUD,
I wish you a Happy New Year! At this time of new beginnings I invite you to post at new FLUX-USA, (only 6 weeks old), where we are !!!ONE FAMILY FLUXED!!!
Kind regards,
CHRISTINE
If you wish, contact tarantinochristine@yahoo.com with your chosen email address. I hope you will :)