ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

SECTION 1: Introduction

SECTION 2: BEFORE CORRESPONDENCE ART

SECTION 3: THE MULTIPLE NAME

SECTION 4: CAVELLINI AND SELF HISTORIFICATION

SECTION 5: RAY JOHNSON

SECTION 6: CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I would like to thank the following people for their help and support, their comments and their works of art and literature:

Anna Banana, Vittore Baroni, Monty Cantsin, Piero Cavellini, David Delafiora, John Held Jr, Ben Hislam, Stuart Home, Apple Jack, Ruud Janssen, Jilly Jargon, Crackerjack Kid, Michael Lumb, Marco Meneguzzo, Merlin, Clement Padin, Stephen Perkins, Roger Radio, Georgina Witta

In this essay I intend to investigate the concept of identity, as understood and used by artists in their work. The Eternal Network is another name for correspondence art or, as it is more usually called, mail art. I shall be using three examples of projects to which identity has been central involving a group of artists and two individual artists, all working within the mail art network. This essay does not intend to be necessarily critical of these artists and their work, but rather wishes to shed light on some aspects of an art which is little known - indeed many artists are completely unaware of the existence of the Eternal Network - and when known is often not understood in the art mainstream.

The ways in which different artists deal with identity vary largely from one to another. The three examples which I have chosen will I hope give variety and breadth of approach to the subject.

Artists have used the mail as a form of communication since the postal system was first introduced, so it could be argued that correspondence art has always existed since that time. For example, from the 1870s Vincent Van Gogh was known to accompany his letters to his brother Theo with drawings and paintings. Whether or not the birth of correspondence art can, or indeed should, be dated separately to the birth of the postal system is a much debated subject. However, some art historians are agreed that the Futurists, Dadaists and Fluxus artists should be placed as key figures when documenting the development of the use of the mail as a means of communicating art.

For the purpose of this essay, in attempting to trace the history of mail art for the benefit of examining identity within that movement, it will indeed be taken as a given that the Futurists, Dadaists and Fluxus played a key role in this area, particularly in work involving identity, the former dealing with the idea of assumed corporate identity, the latter two dealing with identity as a form of political subversion and as a way of challenging authorship.

I do not propose to debate whether or not mail art existed before those movements, or attempt to define exactly when mail art became a movement in its own right; I do not believe that these movements alone were responsible for the birth of correspondence art, but they did use the mail system to communicate their opinions and work. I do not wish to give a historical overview of correspondence art because this area has been covered many times over, but feel it is relevant to mention these movements and the effect they had as a basis for exploring the subject on which much less information exists - the important issue of identity.

The Futurists were the first artists to realise the potential of the mail system as a means of advertising themselves and for the spreading of propaganda. They created letterheads and logos to mimic those of corporations as a means of attacking and subverting the Establishment. They used these quasi logos and corporate identities on postcards, posters and envelopes as a means of broadcasting their identity and giving their movement credibility.

Fluxus was the creation of George Maciunas. It was an art movement that, like Futurism, also used letterheads, logos and the postal system. However, many Fluxus works were designed specifically for use in the post and so the true birth of correspondence art can arguably be attributed to Fluxus artists. What was important about Fluxus, for the purpose of this essay and when linking it to the development of correspondence art, was the way these artists used the postal service and the questions they raised about the identity of the artist. Most importantly, the key question they posed concerned the identity of the artist working as a member of a group: Should an individual artist in this situation be encouraged or even allowed to feed his or her own ego and seek individual recognition by putting his or her name to a work, as opposed to simply working under the collective name? George Maciunas created the Fluxus movement primarily to create a new art: art that was fun, humorous and cheap. It was a fight against traditional and Establishment art movements. This powerful agenda was written by Maciunas in his first manifesto in February 1963: '...Purge the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical art...' (Hendricks 1988:24)

Maciunas, through Fluxus, wanted to question the effect of the ego of the individual artist on group work and to challenge the idea of individual authorship in relation to Fluxus works, examining the idea of a collective ego manifest by the work produced by the group. He believed it was wrong for other artistic movements to deify its artists, placing them above the common worker, whom Maciunas held had as much if not more worth than the artist. He was against measuring one piece of art against another and fanatically opposed those artistic hierarchies which served to elevate certain artists over others by implying that one artist was better than another. He believed that honouring and praising an individual artist's work served only to inflate that artist's sense of self importance. His powerful arguments against "art", as it was popularly perceived, and his intentions for Fluxus can best be seen as illustrated in his 1965 manifesto:

(Kellein 1995:134)

Maciunas strongly believed in artistic collaboration and through collaboration sought to destroy the myth of the singular artist revered as some kind of a god. In order to avoid the trend for individual artists to be placed on pedestals, he conceived the idea of using a collective identity for works of art and proposed that artists working within Fluxus should drop their own names and adopt the collective name of Fluxus. Thus no one artist would grow famous through Fluxus and Fluxus as a whole unit only would benefit. He explained in a letter to Tomas Schmit in January 1964:

This idea of collective identity was sound in theory but imperfect in practice. Maciunas was ultimately responsible for deciding who did or did not participate in Fluxus and also he controlled the everyday running of the group and mostly determined what the group would or would not produce. Thus Fluxus was synonymous with Maciunas; further it can be argued even that Fluxus was Maciunas - in fact, when Maciunas died in 1978 Fluxus ceased to exist. Indeed, collectors of Fluxus works deem only that which was overseen by Maciunas himself to be genuine. The collective name, it seems, is nothing without its initiator. It is decidedly ironic that Maciunas now occupies his own pedestal in the artists' hall of fame. In historical terms, it is now possible to say that Maciunas is Fluxus. In his quest to destroy and to question the worth and appropriateness of the individual ego, with his efforts to suppress the egos of his friends and colleagues within the Fluxus group in an attempt to create a collective ego, he has succeeded in becoming the main beneficiary. There is no reason to suppose that Maciunas was insincere in his expressed desire to join the other Fluxus artists in seeking personal anonymity as one of many within a movement. However, society determined that this was not to be and even in death Maciunas continues to exert the power of the author, no matter that this authorship relates to an idea which would logically have suppressed his individual identity.

Although Maciunas had fought to destroy the singular identities of Fluxus artists, it was probably the Dadaists who to a larger degree influenced the use of multiple identity which eventually flooded the world of correspondence art in the Seventies and Eighties.

A prime example of this would be 'Christ & Co Ltd', the identity assumed by Dadaists Hausmann, Grosz, Baader and Herzfelde. Baader had confronted the Bishop of Brunswick claming to be Jesus Christ. When the bishop failed to recognise him as such, Baader defiled the altar of the bishop's church. Hausmann, in support of his Dadaist colleague, then concocted a means of attacking the established Church by attempting to create an alternative religion. His letter to Baader, chronicled in Courier Dada in 1958, reveals:

(Richter 1964:76)

Launching his Festival of Plagiarism in January 1988, artist and author Stuart Home explained:

The Dadaists used multiple names with a view to gaining social benefits for artists, such as freedom from National Service during the First World War. In the late 1970s the idea re-emerged within the correspondence art network, but those using this method by then had different agendas. In 1977 two American correspondence artists, Dr Al 'Blaster' Ackerman and David 'Oz' Zack, introduced Monty Cantsin to the art world, or rather introduced the art world to Monty Cantsin. Monty Cantsin was an 'open pop star'. Zack's plan was that if enough people performed under this name, Monty Cantsin would become famous. This being the case, if an artist or group of artists was to put on a concert using the identity of Cantsin he, she or they would be guaranteed an audience because the name would have received much publicity simply because of the fact that many artists were using the one name under which to perform. Interestingly, people would want to see a performance either because they believed Monty Cantsin to be someone they knew of or had seen, or because they were aware of the movement and were intrigued enough by the idea to want to attend a concert perpetuating the use of this name. In this way the propaganda and advertising surrounding the use of the name worked in two ways.

The project worked well, with a huge influx of people adopting the Cantsin identity, mainly in the US, but several working from Germany and the UK: Mail art catalogues of the early 1980s reveal that 'Monty Cantsin' was operating from at least 50 different addresses at one given time.

Another multiple name to emerge from the correspondence art network was launched by English artists Stefan Kukowski and Adam Czarnowski under the banner of their mail art project Blitzinformation. They distributed a leaflet urging readers to adopt the name Klaos Oldanburg. By writing to Kukowski and Czarnowski, the reader would be given a number which he or she should then place next to his or her name each time it was used, e.g. Klaos Oldanburg XXIII (Prev. P. Wilson). This idea was similar to the Monty Cantsin project of Zack's and Ackerman's in that it was used to promote the individual by use of an already famous name. Additionally, Kukowski and Czarnowski were using the 'Klaos Oldanburgship' as a means of gaining fame on the basis of having a name similar to Claus Oldenburg, the American pop artist.

The use of a multiple name with the stated objective of political subversion, as opposed to simply providing a means to achieve fame, was launched in London in 1982 by artist and author Stuart Home. Working under the name of Generation Positive, his first project was a call to all rock bands to use the name White Colours. In 1984 Generation Positive (Home) launched its (his) magazine Smile and, by the second issue, was calling for other magazines to adopt the name. Around this time, Home became aware of Zack and Ackerman, who had by now launched their Neoist movement. Home, realising that the movements were almost the same, dropped Generation Positive and became a Neoist.

Initially, the main feature of the Cantsin identity as progressed by Zack and Ackerman, was to achieve fame; what Home added by producing Smile was the launch an investigation into identity and within which would be posed key questions concerning anonymity, authorship and plagiarism. Home's political aspirations for his investigation were revealed by his choice of book title, The Assault on Culture.

By 1985 the correspondence art network was packed with people using the Cantsin identity and that Home's plea had been heeded was evidenced by the countless editions of Smile which had been produced by different individuals and groups world-wide (Fig 1).

Also in 1985, Home created a new multiple name, Karen Eliot (Fig 2). Within the year many artists had adopted the name, however problems started to arise. At that time Home had many works being shown in London galleries and was receiving a substantial amount of press coverage for his installation and performance pieces. Because his link to the origination of Karen Eliot had been publicised by the media, his real name now became linked with that of Karen Eliot. To avoid losing the 'open identity' of Karen Eliot, Home decided to drop the use of the name himself.

Home's experience illustrates how the situation was becoming confusing, and interesting. Artists were finding it difficult to maintain their Karen Eliot identity, as this excluded them from talking about 'personal' experiences and communicating non-Karen Eliot ideas. Also, as more and more attempts were made to flesh out Karen's identity, more and more discrepancies in her character arose, which began to negate the whole concept of her identity as an 'open' one. For example, she was documented as voting both Labour and Tory at the same time. While it could be argued that this sort of dichotomy made her identity more 'open', the actuality was that the idea of 'real' facts being attributed to Karen Eliot went against the ethos of a non-identifiable personality. The artists using Karen Eliot, by allowing themselves to be drawn when questioned on Karen Eliot's defining qualities were themselves helping to destroy her authenticity. The Monty Cantsin identity was also experiencing difficulties, with artists claiming to be the 'original' Monty Cantsin.

By the late 1980s the use of multiple names had all but disappeared from the Network. One reason was probably that many artists were reluctant to collaborate on work unless it led to some form of personal gain. In the early years of the decade, the multiple identity idea had worked well, probably because many people saw it as a quick route to fame and fortune. Ironically this success of the multiple identity actually denied its original reason for existence, if Maciunas is seen as the originator and the initial pure ideals are accepted as those of self suppression and the provision of a means to challenge the art Establishment and question the credibility of personal gain in art. These ideals did not sit well with the social ethos of the 1980s, particularly in Britain and America, and so they conveniently were forgotten while the multiple name proponents used the idea actually to self promote. For those who were faithful to Maciunas' Fluxus concept there were other problems. The use of multiple names was receiving increased press coverage, as were the names' founders. Thus Home and Zack, as Maciunas before them, had become synonymous with the identities they had created, making something of a mockery of the original idea. Those collaborators who remained anonymous were alienated and so the use of the multiple name to promote a whole group rather than an individual identity became redundant.

Whereas the multiple name projects had attempted to give any individual adopting the name a level of fame under the name, but at same time individual anonymity, and the Neoists were trying to give everyone an equal opportunity to create, in fact it could be argued that they wished for complete equality, an Italian correspondence artist named Guglielmo Achille Cavellini was to use the tool of identity in a completely different way.

Cavellini was an Italian multi-millionaire. He was also largely responsible for the surge of interest in mail art that swept across Italy in the mid 1970s which continued to make Italy today one of the most productive countries in the Network. Not only was Cavellini doing wonders to promote the art form, he was also embarking on a totally self-obsessed project that he called 'self historification' - the success of which he accepted he would never be able to completely evaluate. In stark contrast to Neoism, or Fluxus before that, Cavellini was to launch a life-long project with the sole aim of promoting himself as a great and historically important artist. He would use other artists to help achieve his goal, but the only one to benefit, in the way of promotion or fame, would be Cavellini.

His wealth meant he was easily able to self publish his book Cimeli in 1974, in which Cavellini introduced his self historification project to the mail art network. It reads:

Cavellini intended to make himself famous before his death but the real point of his project was to ensure that he was posthumously remembered as an artist and a great man. He went on to write many more books and, again because of his wealth, was able to send out thousands of copies to artists, historians, critics, journalists and museum directors. Perhaps his most successful publication concerning his self historification was his Enciclopedia Universale (Universal Encyclopaedia) in which he documented his life far into the future, crediting himself with inventions, for example 'an apparatus which makes it possible to live on air', and laying testimony to his assumed importance as the man who 'demonstrates the existence of life of the previously undiscovered planet of Ulysses' and who 'makes his first experiment with a lever capable of lifting the world and displacing it 47cm' (Cavellini 1976:233).

The encyclopaedia records:

The aim of this encyclopaedia was to trick historians of the future into attributing an importance to Cavellini that he never actually had. It may have assumed a certain gullibility on the part of these historians, but Cavellini argued that if enough time were to elapse the origin of the encyclopaedia would be unprovable and it would just as likely be accepted as authentic as otherwise. And, of course, this argument cannot be denied. Indeed Italian Marco Meneguzzo, author of The Personal Encyclopaedia, has suggested that Cavellini's greatest success might come in the distant future when a page of his Enciclopedia Universale might be found after a nuclear war.

The books were only part of Cavellini's mammoth project. Undoubtedly the most famous and widespread of Cavellini's propaganda methods was his use of stickers. The Cavellini sticker (Fig 3) was produced in red, white and green, depicting the Italian flag. It came with the inscription 'Cavellini 1914-2014' the year Cavellini had predicted his

death. The sticker also bore the address of the Palazzo Ducale ( The Duke's palace) in Venice, were Cavellini was pretending a commemorative exhibition would be held from 7 September to 27 October 2014. It is unknown how many of these stickers were produced but estimates range from tens of thousands to nearly one million. This work, although intended to baffle and confuse future historians, also acted as a means of raising Cavellini's profile within the contemporary mail art network. His stickers were soon being used on thousands of envelopes and artworks.

Cavellini also produced fake postage stamps, which were marked 'International Postage 333' and bore the portrait of Cavellini. Like the stickers, his stamps advertised a series of fake Cavellini retrospectives. With no financial restraints, Cavellini was able to produce authentic-looking stamps and to distribute them throughout the world. Other mail artists were, and still are, creating this kind of fake postage stamp (known as an artistamp) and some artists have tried passing their artistamps off as legal tender through the mail, but this did not concern Cavellini. He was not trying to fool the Italian Post Office. He was again attempting to write himself into future history as a great man, one worthy to have his head on a stamp. He did not expect his stamps to be accepted now, but wanted them to be seen as authentic now later.

Cavellini also used his wealth to enable him to 'persuade' the authorities to allow him to drape huge banners from famous galleries (Fig 4) announcing retrospectives of his work to be held there, supposedly after his death. He designed and printed posters for these imaginary shows to be held in the next millennium in prestigious venues all over the world, for example the Tate Gallery, London, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Chicago Art Institute.

Cavellini's idea was again that these posters and photographs of the buildings advertising the shows would be taken in the future as authentic documentation of the events.

The fact that the shows Cavellini had done so much to promote would almost certainly never happen were of little consequence, for the posters outside the gallery were the show and at the same time were sufficient evidence that the show took place.

In the art world Cavellini proclaimed himself an 'old master', a genius and a role model. Not surprisingly, some artists took offence at this, calling him 'presumptuous'. This was a naive criticism as this was the opposite of what he actually was. By producing and distributing so much 'evidence' of his greatness in the form of Cavellini propaganda he was presuming very little and instead was doing everything he could to try to ensure his fame.

Perhaps these critics found him too self-obsessed. Perhaps they didn't understand what he was trying to do. Perhaps they had no sense of humour.

Cavellini's practice is best summed up by artistamp collector Peter Frank in his essay 'Postal Modernism': 'At its best, Cavellini's whole mega-hype becomes a meta-hype, a burlesque on the aspirations and dreams of every artist and on the mechanisms such an artist hopes (against hope) to subjugate to his or her career.' (Frank 1984:440)

The irony of the Cavellini story is that the man who actually died on 23 October 1990, 24 years earlier than he predicted (but then he was supposing he would live to be 100), has achieved his objective in some part. He is posthumously famous now, not as a great artist and man of letters, but as a man who promoted himself as such; it is his attempt to achieve fame that has caused him to be documented and remembered. Whether or not Cavellini's long-term plan will be truly successful and he will be presumed to be a man of historical importance in hundreds of years from now, none of us will ever know. But it is perhaps worth noting that Andy Warhol has screenprinted Cavellini's portrait.

The most famous and highly acclaimed of all mail artists is Ray Johnson. Almost every book, interview, article or essay on correspondence art mentions him. In much the same way as the Futurists and Dada are argued to be the first exponents of mailed art, Johnson is regarded as the originator of mail art. He is often called the father, or even grandfather, of the movement. Clive Phillpot, in his essay 'The Mailed Art of Ray Johnson' went so far as to say that there was no doubt Johnson was a living legend. He is indeed known in the art mainstream and his work is now quite collectable, which is very unusual for a mail artist, illustrating that the mainstream either consider his work of artistic merit or regard him as key in the development of a movement of some value. Within the Eternal Network itself there is still some debate about whether or not he was indeed the originator, some arguing he was simply one of a group of people who launched what can be described as the modern mail art movement. There is not space here to follow up this debate but it is interesting to note that again there is argument about the 'identity' of an originator.

Correctly or not, Johnson is credited with many things, one of the most important being his invention of the 'add and pass' project. He would post an artwork, a letter or an object of interest to one party, instructing them to add to the piece and post it to a second party whose address would be included in the piece. What Johnson was doing with the his add and pass work was introducing people to one another through artistic collaboration. With these mailings, Johnson developed a large network of artists with whom he enjoyed corresponding. This network Johnson named 'The New York Correspondance (sic) School' (an intended pun by Johnson) and within it he developed smaller groups and networks known as 'fan clubs' such as the 'Spam Radio Club'. Correspondees would often find themselves enrolled in one of these 'fan clubs', and might not always know why. Maybe it was their style of work, a pun on their name, or something they might have said in a letter. What Johnson was doing, however bizarre the reason, was creating connections and networks through the post.

Johnson may not have been the first person to do this but what he undoubtedly did do was build a network large enough to gain attention. This was arguably helped by the diverse range of people he mailed to: Critics, galleries, artists, poets, writers, photographers and people of non-artistic background, all found themselves attracted by Johnson's invitations to participate. Johnson often wrote to people he had read about, inviting them to join his 'school'. And so, through this network, Johnson was credited with the creation of mail art.

Just as the Rolling Stones in the early 1960s became better known than the originators of the music that made them famous, by popularising black rhythm and blues and even, some said, selling it back to America, so it was that Ray Johnson, as his fame grew, became synonymous with mail art. Other artists working around the same time, who collaborated with and must have influenced Johnson, are now forgotten. It was Johnson, many now say, who started mail art. Much of the respect and admiration accorded Johnson is because he is believed to be 'the first'.

It is ironic that Johnson, who achieved fame primarily as a communicator, apparently communicated very little of his true identity, unless it is accepted that he truly was the person he projected and that there was no other personality beneath the mystery with which he appeared to cloak his everyday life. His work often featured the cryptic message and considerable word play. His mailings never followed a pattern, sometimes he didn't respond to mail he was sent for years but then, out of the blue, he would reply. He would rarely give interviews and on the occasions when he did, would answer questions in a vague and cryptic manor (which have been likened to the style of the avant garde musician John Cage):

Another example of the enigmatic style adopted by Johnson when answering questions can be found in the records of Dutch mail artist Ruud Janssen's 'Mail-Interview', a project started in 1994 and still continuing in which Janssen conducts through the post a series of interviews with mail artists.

Janssen's report of his interview with Johnson reads:

The interview illustrates that Johnson chose not to enlighten his audience with any usual, run-of-the-mill facts, preferring humorous word play to serious discussion. Undoubtedly this only fuelled interest in his identity.

Artists have been imitating Johnson since the early days of his 'Correspondance School'. Whether these imitations have been attempts to gain fame through association or efforts at paying homage, one can only hazard a guess. However, the simple fact that people have spent time producing work to look like Johnson's (Fig 5) shows what a strong influence he has had on the mail art movement.

Whether his projected personality was adopted for effect or not, Johnson is now documented as a mysterious figure, particularly perhaps because of the manner of his death, officially deemed to be suicide, on Friday 13 January 1995, which finally elevated him to the status of guru-like figure in the world of mail art.

Much was read into his death. In fact, before he jumped to a watery New York grave off the Sag Harbor-North Haven Bridge, Johnson told a few of his closest correspondents that he was planning his greatest 'nothing'. Did this mean he had planned his suicide as a work of art? Many thought so. And so his death assumed an aura of intrigue and greater mystery and became the subject of many strange conclusions.

The above quote is similar to many written about Johnson's death and which insist on seeing it as his final riddle. Perhaps it could be argued that Johnson did have his death so well planned that he somehow arranged to be surrounded by numbers that added up to 13. However, it is far more likely that too much has been read into these coincidental circumstances. Johnson probably had no choice of which room he was given at the motel and would certainly have had no way of controlling the time at which he was seen. As an artist dedicated to the absurd and the obscure, however, he would undoubtedly have appreciated the lengths to which some people have gone to in searching among the mundane minutiae of his last hours for clues to his thoughts and intentions - clues to his identity.

Since Johnson's death many artists have become obsessed with his identity, particularly manifested by their continued use of his name as a symbol or logo. Imitations and fake Johnson drawings are numerous in mail art and his 'bunny head' illustration (Fig 6) has become an emblem of the mail art network. To compare Johnson to Elvis Presley would not be unjust. Just as some Presley fans failed to accept his death, so too do some Johnson fans; others are content simply to keep his name alive through imitation. Much continues to be written about Johnson and his work and most of what is written serves to enhance his image as a man of mystery, perhaps because the authors tend to be people who did not personally know Johnson. Those few who did know him remain strangely silent, perhaps exactly because they justly feel their part in the origination of mail art as a movement - their identity - has been minimised by Johnson's elevation.

But perhaps it is fair that the man who went to the trouble of moving all his possessions to leave an almost bare room to confuse visitors, and who took a taxi ride from Harbor Bar to Barbara Bar simply because of the linguistics (both now well-documented events which have passed into mail art folk lore), should be remembered as an enigmatic legend. And was the removal of his possessions really just a joke, or was it a sign that Johnson truly wanted to hide his 'identity' from strangers? And was this in turn a sign of insecurity, or was it the actions of a true artist? Although these questions will never be answered, it is undisputed fact that the Johnson identity is synonymous with mail art.

It is difficult to accurately evaluate whether or not the three subjects which I have explored - Ray Johnson's cult status, Cavellini's self historification and the use of the multiple name - illustrate areas of 'success' in the field of identity in art.

We do not know that Johnson intended to be seen as the most important mail artist ever or if he meant his death to be mysterious. However, whatever the artist's intention, it is interesting to note that the mail art network which, as accessible to all, non judgmental and democratic, could be expected to be a true example of a flat 'organisation', has itself chosen to elevate one of its own and has adopted Johnson's identity as an icon for itself.

Cavellini's identity project cannot be fully evaluated as yet, due to the very nature of this 'self historification'; it can only be deemed successful if, in a future era, he is recognised as a person of historical importance because his works are mistakenly seen as documentation of fact rather than works of fiction. Some measure of success can perhaps be attributed to Cavellini since his project did serve to bring him some fame during his lifetime.

The multiple name projects could be said to have been successful in bringing to light the relevance of questioning identity and authorship, but in terms of the projects' own intentions, this success was short lived. In recent years new multiple names have been put forward for use, but it is my expectation that these identities will go the same way as Eliot and Cantsin: the individuals which go to make up mankind, even those who operate within a sharing network such as is mail art, are not willing to completely give up their own personal identities. In conclusion I would argue that, while attempts have been made, and may continue to be made, to submerge the individual within the group for the sake of art, what artists (in common with all other individuals within society) truly seek is personal recognition, if not reward, for their own work.

Cantsin, M. (ed) (1985) Smile, un-numbered

Cantsin, M. (ed) (undated) Smile, Issue 6

Cantsin, M. (ed) (undated) Smile, un-numbered

Cavellini, G. (1974) Cimeli, Brescia, Edizione Nuovi Strumenti

Cavellini, G. (1976) Enciclopedia Universale, Brescia: GAC

Cavellini, G. (1976) 'Italy', Vile 2,1:66

Eliot, K. (ed) (undated) Smile, Issue 8

Frank, P. (1984) 'Postal Modernism: Artists' Stamps and Stamp Images' in M. Crane and M. Stofflet (eds) Correspondence Art, San Francisco: Contemporary Arts Press

Gaglione, W. (1984) 'Arte Postale/Mail Art: Italian Communication Artists' in M. Crane and M. Stofflet (eds) Correspondence Art, San Francisco: Contemporary Arts Press

Hendricks, J. (1988) Fluxus Codex, Detroit/New York: Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection/in association with Harry N. Abrams Incorporated

Hoffer, E. (1970) 'The Passionate State of Mind' in R. Tripp (ed) The International Thesaurus of Quotations, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Home, S. (1988) The Assault on Culture, London: Aporia Press and Unpopular Books

Home, S. (1991) Neoist Manifestos, Stirling: AK Press

Home, S. (1995) Neoism, Plagiarism & Praxis, Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press

Home, S. (ed) (undated) Smile, Issue 3

Janssen, R. (1996) Thoughts About Mail Art Part-13, Tilburg: Tam-Publications

Kellein, T. (1995) Fluxus, London: Thames and Hudson Ltd

Lumb, M. (1998), Democratic Art as Social Sculpture, Ipswich: unpublished thesis

Phillpot, C. (1995) 'The Mailed Art of Ray Johnson' in C. Welch (ed) Eternal Network, Alberta: University of Calgary Press

Radio, R. (1992) Cozmic Cuts, Faversham: Rabbit Press

Richter, H. (1964) Dada, Art and Antiart, Cologne: Dumont Schauberg

Unattributed (1995) 'Death', in Sandbox Magazine, publisher unknown