Zwei Veröffentlichungen

Zwei Veröffentlichungen sind in diesem Juli zu melden: Die renommierte Literaturzeitschrift erostepost druckte in der Nummer 63 gleich zwei Kurzgeschichten von Gabriele ab:

  • Dmytro: ein zeitnah beschriebener Aufbruch zur Flucht.
  • Das erste Mal: eine unsentimentale Kindergeschichte.

Die erostepost wurde heuer bereits 35 Jahre alt und berichtet darüber auf ihrer Website.

Gerald publizierte im Rahmen der bibliophilen Haiku-Reihe von Ingo Cesaro. Der aktuelle Band trägt den Titel Fund im Tagebuch und ist in der Neuen Kranach Presse erschienen.

Neben Beiträgen aus Deutschland finden sich in dem handgebundenen Band Haiku aus Belgien, Frankreich, Japan, den Niederlanden, Nordmazedonien, Österreich, Polen und Serbien. Beiträge stammen u.a. von Friedrich Ach, Maria Dippelreiter (Lehner), Gisela Gülpen, Klára Hůrková, Małgorzata Płoszewska und Barbara Zeizinger.

Exchange of Trees

The International Union of Mail-Artists (IUOMA) hosts nearly 400 special interest groups on its server. One of our favorites is devoted to the art of trees. The description reads:

“Without trees the world would be dead and a place of disaster. With trees the world can tackle global warming. Hug a tree and you hug the earth, you hug yourself and your neighbors. Without trees, no love!”

Spruce in Salzburg by Georg Pflugbeil – CC 3.0

One of the members is a US-based artist who calls herself Oak Lady. She sent a very nice card with a hand-colored print and wanted to know which is the dominant tree in Austria. We did some research, and that’s the result:

  1. spruce (49%)
  2. European beech
  3. larch
  4. whitebark pine
  5. fir

Gerald answered with a photograph from Styria and a poem about the mycelium which can be seen as an invisible network connecting the trees of the forest.

Skurrile Geschichten

Die AG Offene Literatur gibt es seit 1996, und in der Zeit hat sie sich als zentrale literarische Vereinigung in Westösterreich etabliert. Im Gegensatz zum andernorts gepflegten Geniekult hat sie sich von Anfang an als Produktionsgemeinschaft verstanden. In einem Grundsatzpapier von 2021 heißt es:

“Im Fokus unserer Publikationen stehen: Solidarität und Offenheit.”

Zu den Projekten der AGL gehören der Verlag Edition Art Science (Edition AS) und die Zeitschrift litera[r]t. Diese erschien zwischen 2011 und 2018 auf Papier und wird seither als Online-Publikation betrieben, die sowohl literarische Texte als auch Arbeiten über Literatur veröffentlicht.

Ich freue mich, dass die Redaktion gleich drei Beispiele aus meinem Projekt Die Welt in den Ausgaben 11-13 (alle 2022) veröffentlicht hat. Hier kann man sie lesen.

Gerald Jatzek - Text aus »Die Welt« 3
Gerald Jatzek - Text aus »Die Welt« 2
Gerald Jatzek - Text aus »Die Welt« 1

Link

Foto: Karolina Grabowska / Pexels – PD

Helping Brautigan out

Richard Brautigan’s poetry was anything but academic. When he was not trying to write koan-like lines – “I learned Buddhism by watching”, he reported – he was always good for  a nonsense verse. Several poems consisting of titles above white space combine these approaches.

In The Amelia Earhart Pancake he talks about his vain efforts to write a poem that relates to the title.  The five lines were included in the collection Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork (1976) and subsequently made many readers smile and some honorable literary critics raise eyebrows.

Thomas Huber reads “Der Amelia Earhart Pfannkuchen”

In 2021, two German guys, Timo Brandt and Petrus Akkordeon, had an idea: Why not help Brautigan out posthumously. They posted the idea on Facebook, and before long, poems started to roll in, and they decided to publish an anthology. They read, they arranged, Petrus made very nice illustrations, and miraculously they found a publisher – drum roll, please: Moloko’s Ralf Friel.

And now the book is out, two hundred pages of reactions to Brautigan’s writer’s block. Many pick up the original proposition with due respect for the author; others talk directly to him or take his lines as a pretext for ramblings about Amelia Earhart’s last flight.

While most of the poems are in German, some, like Gerald’s lines that utilize the pilot’s firsthand account about being hungry during long flights, are in English.

Timo Brandt / Petrus Akkordeon (Hg.): Der Amelia Earhart Pfannkuchen, Moloko plus, Schönebeck 2022.

Death of a Factory

Raphael Nadolny sent a triptych of photos of the old vodka factory Koneser which means connoisseur in English in the Warsaw district of Old Praga. 

The industrial complex was built around 1900 and at times employed more than 400 people. After World War II the premises were acquired by the Warsaw Spirits Industry Polmos which had to close the factory in 2007.

Raphael’s photos are from 2009 when “the halls were lifeless, empty, with no workers moving around” and the whole plant was “silent, abandoned, entwined in cobwebs and a thick layer of dust”.

Right now, the former factory is being revitalized and transformed into an area of residential, office and commercial facilities.

Possibilities of the Body

How do we use our bodies to work, to perform, to create, to play, to compete, to unwind, to care for others, to build, to communicate, to hike, or to accomplish any of the tasks we confront in everyday life? How do we use our elbows, our feet, our hands, our torso, our ankles, our legs, or any other part of our bodies to do those things?

In the anthology Movements – Our Bodies in Action authors and poets worldwide place the focus on how their bodies work and observe how the bodies of those around them also work. This is a deluxe owners manual in prose and poetry for anyone who has a body.

Gerald Jatzek contributed a poem about the fast growing possibilities of powered exoskeletons that can take over large parts of the active muscle work for handicapped persons.

Steve Carr (Ed.): Movements – Our Bodies in Action,  Paperback / Kindle eBook, Sweetycat Press, Richmond, Va., USA, 360 p., ISBN-13 979-8809991940

(Illustrations: book cover, Prettysleepy2 / pixabay.com)

Mail Art in the Cloister

The barn of the cloister in Zehdenick (Brandenburg, Germany) is a well known location for concerts, poetry readings and art workshops. June 12 has seen the opening of a museum about the cloister as well as a mail art show.

The cloister was founded in 1250 as a Cistercian nunnery. It became protestant in the 16th Century, and after a devastating fire in 1801, the church was torn down.

The barn, a former pilgrims’ hostel, was rebuilt to serve as a venue for cultural events. The Cloister Gallery inside the barn opened its doors on April 1, 2000.

The curator of the mail art exhibition, Christian Spunk Seipel, asked for personal reflections on the history of the building and its inhabitants and guests.

Gerald’s collage is about the contrast between our short life span an the existence of stones.

Gabriele’s painting contemplation reflects the impression of light shining through church windows.

Finnish Puzzles

Atte Ourie from Helsinki is known for his enigmatic works. The two cards he sent to Vienna are no exception.

Maybe they show a pirate’s treasure map which you can’t understand, until you solve seven riddles and cast three dangerous spells.

Maybe they hint towards a part of the Kalevala that has been overlooked by its editor Elias Lönnrot. It could be the very part in which Ilmarinen explains exactly how the magic Sampo works.

Or are they aleatoric drawings combined with sound poetry?

Anyway, we decided to combine them with a nice photo of the popular Espanadi Park (©Paasikivi – CC 4.0) to offer our readers a glimpse of the green Finnish capital.

Children of the World

Yesterday saw the opening of the mail art exhibition Bambini nel mondo – Children in the World curated by Renata di Palma with works of 57 artists.

Part of the event was a presentation of Daniela Minerbi’s fable Gino e Margherita by the artist Sarah Mutinelli.

The show runs from 1 to 26 June in the gallery Kunst Grenzen / Arte di Frontera in the municipality Roveré della Luna in Trentino (Italy).

Online Exhibition

Those of you who can’t travel to Italy, may want to visit the online exhibition at the website of the gallery.

Event

On Sunday, 26 June, at 7 pm, the decentralized world congress Mail Art Wave will hold one of its events.

The initiative engages in fighting hate campaigns, the emergence of narrow nationalism and all forms of racism and attacks on democracy.

Gabriele Müller: Bambini

 

by Gabriele Müller & Gerald Jatzek
Gerald Jatzek & Gabriele Müller: Looking back… ( watercolor, photo, collage)

Kunst Grenzen / Arte di Frontera

  • Via Villotta 7/a, Tn – 38030 Rovere della Luna, Italy
  • Website
Comune di Roverè della Luna

Grazie

La mostra d’arte postale collettiva Bambini nel mondo – Children in the World fu realizzata in collaborazione con Comune e Pro Loco di Rovere della Luna, Cassa Rurale Rotaliana e Giovo, Associazione culturale Kunst Grenzen-Arte di frontiera aps, Event Art, Rivista di Arte Trentina e RMT – Radio Music Trento.

A Card from Down Under

A beautiful card from Tasmania reached Vienna last week. You can see the appropriate title on the left side: Pamela Parks’ collage has traveled 16,216.34 km (10,076.36 mi) in one month to make us feel connected. Thus, it made roughly 540 km per day.

Pamela, who has been to Austria, mentions that she is a photographer as well, an activity which matches her love for wildlife and nature.

And, yes, we will heed her advice to dream big.

70 x Endurance

Serlina Rose is a poetess and writer from the Caribbean island of Dominica. When she is not working on her own stories and poems, reading, or sharing ideas and opinions on social media channels, she is compiling anthologies.

Recently, she edited a truly international compilation on the subject of endurance for an Indian publishing house. The book assembles poetry and short pieces of prose from 70 writers.

Thumbing through their biographies reveals that they are a truly international bunch. They come from Bolivia, Bosnia, Gambia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Nepal, Poland, the Philippines, South Africa, the USA, and more countries. Among them are accomplished writers as well as youngsters who are experimenting with forms and contents.

Serlina says about her project, “Endurance was compiled to encourage whoever comes across it.”

Contributors

Ankuraditya Goletar, Binod Dawadi, Obinna Chilekezi, Dhruv Malpani, Evangeline Gnana Kiruba.J, Adriana Rocha, Amb. Maid Corbic, Jia Monica, Marie Jawo, Eram Anwar, Sumedha Sharma, Michael Otieno Ogelo, Ashrin Mathew, Ishita Banerjee, Salem Ferrell, Candace, Deepanchakkaravarthi, Zowey Rens, Muralidhar Bansal, Aliya Siddiqua, Anjali Jain, Antonio Bernard T.  Ma-at, Shoukath Afrin.H, Sehloho Piet Rampai, Nidhyapriya C, Supriya Sharma, Christopher T. Dabrowski, Pooja Shekhar, Angelin Mathew, Mark Andrew Heathcote, Vimala Thanggavilo, Adiba Tazim, Vandit Bery, Vire Sagar Mahasar, Omoloye Miracle Deborah, Gerald Jatzek, Kalamkaar, Ndubuisi Emmanuel Chinedu, Abirlal Mukhopadhyay, Fidelis O. Ndubuisi, Manisha Haldar, Maureen Shepherd, Archana Kumar, Keshav Sharma, Akinluyu Oluwatomisin Adetayo, M. G. Barapal, Anwesha Rath, Monika Sundar. S, Suk Raj Darjee, Teertha Unni, Saumya Kinnari Kartik Dalal, Sukanya Mondal, Shail Virendrabhai Palan, Iris Davis, Vijayamalathi Mani, Gabriella White, Sakshi Parekh, Hiba Fatima, Adrija Jana, Sanskriti Yadav, Alka Jain Indore, Nwafor, Sunday David, James Paul, Asmi Naskar, Ankita Kushwah, Rishu Dev, Suma Kuri, Aagash Samraj C, Janvi

Serlina Rose (Ed.): Endurance, Blue Bird Publications (a unit of JEC), Chandauli (UP, India), 2022

On the Outside

Senza traccia / Without a trace is the title of a mail art exhibition in Casole d’Elsa, a municipality in the Province of Siena in the region Tuscany.  The aim of the show is to draw attention to persons that are isolated and marginalized.

The works cover a broad variety of art forms like drawings, photography and poetry and a multitude of styles from a realistic approach to symbolic and surrealistic solutions.

The cooperative work of Gerald Jatzek and Gabriele Müller interprets the death penalty as the ultimate form of marginalization.

The exhibition opens on 21 May and closes on 4 June. An academic conference on the first day includes panels on different aspects of marginalization and a lecture on mail art by Piero Sani.

Senza traccia
21.5 – 4.6.
Galleria Belvedere
19, Via Aringhieri
Casole d’Elsa
Tuscany / Italy

Natural Beauty

The mail art call bellezza (beauty) is part of a series cultural and artistic projects named voci di notte (voices of the night) of the echorama A.P.S. association.

The theme which includes all the possible meanings of beauty was chosen to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the World Heritage Convention, adopted by the general conference of UNESCO on November 16, 1972.

The association runs virtual exhibitions on wordpress.com and instagram. Rumours have it that there may be a real world exhibition in Casale Monferrato, a small town the Piedmont region of Italy.

Gerald’s combination of his photo of the Malaysian island of Tioman and a poem is already online.

Update

Now, you can find all contributions in a virtual exhibition, where they are organized in short videos representing the rooms of a gallery.

By Chance

Melanie Reed from Seattle loves to produce hand-crafted media that reveals the three-dimensional process of its creation. Her excellent paper collages Meeting of Minds and Ship of State II reached me, while I was reading a book about Max Ernst who developed the three-dimensonal techniques grattage (scraping the surface layers of paint) and frottage (incorporating the structures of an object that is placed under paper or canvas).

For André Breton, the godfather of surrealism, this wouldn’t have been a coincidental event but an objective chance, which he defined with a phrase from Lautréamont’s long prose poem Les Chants de Maldoror:

“as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table.“

Finally, the envelope is a collage in its own right that displays the address in the form of a dialog between a dog and a fox.

If you want to learn more about Melanie Reed’s art, visit her website surrealcollage.com.

Bilingual

Recently, two of Gerald’s texts were published nearly simultaneously in Austria and the US.

The literature magazine Book of Matches has included the poem Farewell Song in its spring issue (no. 5). It features prominently as the last text of the publication.

The first issue was published in January 2021. The journal is edited by two accomplished writers, Kelli Allen and Nicholas Christian. This is how they describe their project:

“Book of Matches is the passion project of two lovers of story. In an age dominated by our worst tendencies for tribalism, it is more important than ever to celebrate the best in humanity through the very real magic of words. (…)
In essence, Book of Matches both celebrates what burns against the dark, and the assurance of how little it illuminates before going out.”

The beautiful cover of this issue is a work of Jennifer M. Griggs.

A free version is available as a flip book.

Contributors
Elliot Brady Kopie Aaron Fischer, Adam DH, Anna Shannon, Anne Evans, Anthony, Anthony Isaac Bradley, Anthony Seidman, Autumn Kotsiuba, Bobby Parrott, Sara J Burge, C. Cimmone, Cameron Morse, Carolyn Steinhoff, Christian Anton Gerard, Clifford Saunders, David Borofka, David Dixon, Edward Sheehy, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Francis Fernandes, Frank Baez, Gerald Jatzek, Gregg Shapiro, Gregg Williard, Gwen North Reiss, Howie Good, Ian Ganassi, Ivan Peledov, J Tarwood, David L James, Jan Ball, Jason, Jason Kerzinski, Kevin Browne, Jeff Newberry, Jeffrey Feingold, Jeni Crone Griffin, John Kucera, John Sullivan, John Rodzvilla, Joshua Mahler, Justin Lacour, Kelly Bridget Canaday, Kerry Muir, Kevin Miller, Kristyn Snedden, Laura Glenn, Lisa Zimmerman, Logan Andrus, Lorette C. Luzajic, Madeleine Gallo, Marc Swan, Edward McCourt, Michael Meyerhofer, Miles Waggener, Nadine, Nicholas Christian, Pamela Kripke, Paul Ilechko, Project Murphy, R.T. Castleberry, Ralph Sneeden, Rita Redd, Robert Gamble, Roxanne Cardona, Stephen Kampa, Stout Bear, Suzanne Dottino, Terry Belew, Tim Conley, Tim Kahl, Vanessa Bradley, Vivian Wagner, Zebulon Huset

***

The Austrian publication Litera[r]t has published the short story Der Verlierer (the loser) in its number 12 (3-4/2022). The text about a man who wakes up and has lost his existence is part of a collection of dreamlike stories that are likewise influenced by a surrealist approach and the love for storytelling throughout the Balkans.

Editor Raimund Bahr of the AG Literatur has included the story in the online edition.

Speaking in many Tongues

The language school  Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Carabanchel in Madrid was looking for contributions to the theme learning languages.

Gerald’s card includes references to four great works of literature: the Odyssey, The Cid, Beowulf and the Finnish epic Kalevala.

On the right side is a scan of the colorful confirmation of participation in the call.

Strange Creature

This one was sent to Melanie Reed in the USA. It’s once again a coproduction of Gabriele and Gerald.

Looking closely at the drawing, they decided that the pink animal is not a quadruped, but a triped that happens to have four legs. Well. and deep thoughts of this kind can only be expressed in a nonsense poem in the tradition of Edward Lear & co…

Demonology

Back in 2020, when we were confronted with COVID-19 for the first time, most of us were confused and scared. Although we tried to – and most of us did – to approach the pandemic in a rational way, we harbored all kinds of fears related to the virus.

The Alianza Cultural para las Artes de Puerto Rico reminded us that repressing these fears might damage our health as well. They asked us to look closely at the demons that haunt us and to transform what we see into a tangible medium.

As a result of the call, the Alianza Cultural and its president Juanita Cruz-Aguadilla (s. video) collected mail art from 32 countries and compiled them for an exhibition which has been shown at three venues:

  • Museo de Arte de Aguadilla, 2020
  • Museo de Historia de Ponce, 2021
  • Sala de exposiciones Pedro Tomás Labayen, San Sebastián, 2022

Gabriele Müller’s demonio is still carrying a black shadow of fear on his back. However, he has been painted and spoken of and therefore has lost his grip on us.