100 Post Office Boxes — Artist Statement

I know many of my correspondents are upset that I am getting these amazing post office boxes. For you... my dear friends all I have to say is...

100 Post Office Boxes are mine!!!... bhah ha ha...

But alas.... they are all of ours... today I offer a plan for these beautiful pieces. Any time any of my correspondence friends want to do a postal show... or even, lets say a Ray johnson 'Nothing' these boxes will always be available to you for whatever you need as long as the function is related to postal art.

An interesting side note that I didn't realize until I sat down and stopped thinking about everything. The previous owner of these boxes was a Mr. Johnson... I believe our 'Cult of Ray Johnson' (begun by Barker) is staring to have an effect on the things we deal with in everyday life and the work we produce. I would like us all to take a moment and remember Ray and the certain interims of him that have motivated and touched each of us.

Viva the 'New York Correspondence School'... viva 'The Shelley Duvall Fan Club'... viva 'The Blue Eyes Fan Club'... viva 'The Brue Eyes Fan Club'.... and most importantly... viva 'The Cult of Ray Johnson'...

I compel us all to take a moment to reflect on the current state of Modern Art — (pause)

I understand that not all of us follow the current trends. I heartily embrace this fact. I believe the most important movements have come to fruition in ignorance to the post... to the past. I now lay down the challenge for us to move beyond our current ideals and convictions and move toward something our children's children will idealize and act upon. I know it is possible... I have seen the great new renaissance. I have envisioned it since I was able to color with a crayon. We are sitting on the fringe my friends.

The Young British Artists only touched the far escapes of this ideal. Damien Hirst has helped to open the doors, but still as much as I admire the man and the people that work under him, he has failed on so many levels. The YBA's are now what is current... I say bull-ocks to this. There is more to explore... more to reveal.. more to disgust, disclose, disguise, declare, and divulge.

The great teacher Joseph Albers taught his students at Black Mountain — " Art is a s'vindle (swindle)". Ohh how true it is... and yet it is more than that. I think what Albers was truely teaching was the impact of modern culture on post modern arts aesthetics. A modern cataclysm of old world ideals meets the cathode ray tube. He was pushing his students. No, he was assaulting his students — trying to force them into a fight or flight response... but he was too ahead of his time. Some of his children pushed the threshold... Raushenberg - Johnson. These two geniuses pushed art to its limits, but age, old world method, and caution got the better of them. Their effort was not in vain, but the works and aesthetics they inflicted on my generation are only heard by the tired, the sick, the questioning, and the self-tutored.

The time is now... and the time is ours. The events that unfold for us over the next 20 years will either move modern art or stiffen it. I myself say fuck to it all. A grand fuck to all the lessons of the past and the present. I have read book after book to lucubrate and indoctrinate myself as have countless other for centuries. Now I want us to write our own books. I see a grand orgy of new ideas so brobdingnagian that the new renaissance will have no choice, but to be born a premature birth... left only to be nurtured an cradled until it can breath and sustain life on its own.

I see something better than a profaned golden road ahead. What I see is something untouched by man. Some have called it god, heaven or the holy ghost... I say bullshit. This is same ideal that stopped man from reaching the pinnacle we are currently at some 1000 years ago. I say what is coming is unlike anything anyone has ever written about or had the chance to taste. What is ahead is light... pure white unexpurgated light. Not god... not the devil... not the future... not our destiny... not the present... not the past... but ours.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
APRIL 21, 2005
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CARDS FROM BEYOND THE EDGE - Herry Monster—Lavender (postcard)
CARDS FROM BEYOND THE EDGE - Telly Monster—Carnation Pink (postcard)
CARDS FROM BEYOND THE EDGE - Warren Wolf—Salmon (postcard)

CARDS FROM BEYOND THE EDGE - 04.21.05 Formal Letter (letter)