I Won Second Place in a Russian Mail-Art Contest

 I won second place in a Russian mail-art contest. I didn’t know that I entered a Russian mail-art contest but I have the piece of paper to prove it. I won second place in “mixed technique.” I’m a “foreign artist” and I’m from “Salem USA.” Let me back up and try and give some context to this random achievement, one that I can only barely piece together. 

A scan of the award.

 I make too many things. Sometimes those things end up in piles in my upstairs workspace. They’re all in one spot, taped together, and ready to go. When I feel like sending stuff out I’ll go to the pile and start writing. Rarely is something from the pile sent to someone specifically. It’s even rarer when I send something specific for a mail-art all call. I don’t create collages with specific people in mind, I create collages because I like making them. [Well, that’s not exactly true, Gerald gets all the ones with Nixon as the subject]. Personalized mail is mostly for people that have asked me questions, or sent something I feel I need to respond directly to, or if I’m visually making fun of a friend. If you’re a mail-artist and you get a collage from me the contents were probably coincidental.

When the pile gets way too high I find a list of “mail-art calls” to send to. Mail-art calls are basically when a mail-artist wants to display a lot of work and from all over the world. Sometimes there’s a theme to the show (I don’t like these and I never send things ‘on theme’) and sometimes they’re free-for-alls. For free-for-alls you send whatever you’d like. Sometimes the shows are held in art galleries, sometimes in community spaces, colleges, someone’s home, or in a barn in The Ukraine. The pictures from the latter have to be the best show space I’ve ever seen. I sent something to them and I got to see my postcard in the barn.

The items you send to these shows never come back. It’s assumed that the artwork will not be sold and that everything will be shown in the spirt of the mail-art gods. The whole show will then become part of the personal archives of the person who set it up. Sometimes you’ll see pictures of the show. Sometimes you’ll be notified through email about the show. Sometimes you’ll send something and completely forget about the show. At best, you’ll see a video, probably shot in Germany of nice German people walking around and looking at the walls. Mail-art things seem to happen in Germany.

I make no documentation that I have sent to the “all-call.” Any documentarian is a nice surprise. You have no expectations and then there it is, something you’ve created has been set against a nice wall in a place you’ll never visit. As best I can guess, that’s the process that put all of this Russian award thing in motion. I had an envelope that I sent to a random show not knowing that it had a contest (the instructions might have said this but they were in Russian) component to it. I forgot about the show (I might have sent my entry a year before) and then out of the blue I was sent this wonderful document saying I had won second place. I was as much surprised as flattered.

The piece of paper is currently tacked to the ceiling above my upstairs desk.

Right when I won the award I posted an image of it online. I posted the image not because I was particularly proud of the achievement, but because of the randomness of the situation. Lots of people I’m associated with on social media were quick to congratulate me. Only a few of these people seemed to understand that I was more confused by the award that flattered. I didn’t share the image because I was fishing for compliments, I was simply fishing for answers. Whatever the reason for the award, I was happy to have it, even if I didn’t know why it was given to me. There’s nothing like recognition without context (or money) for motivation.

I figured I need to try and find out some answers. A quick google search produced a Facebook page with a few nice images of the show. I scanned through the pictures to see if I could spot my own work, I couldn’t. Who knows what I even sent them? When I asked “А4’2020 International ART exhibition-contest” (the name of their Facebook page) more about the show, I noticed that I had contacted them back in December. The only response I received the first time was a terse “Ok” to my “Thanks for the mail” message. I sent a longer inquiry about the show that hasn’t been answered. In the past when I’ve tried to find out about random stuff related to mail-art, things got difficult and quickly. There’s too many countries and too many languages. Without knowing Russian, I considered directly contacted the curators a dead-end.

Tyumen Western Siberia Russia

In bewilderment I posted an image of my document online. Pretty quickly I got a bite from one of my mail-art friends who also received a similar award. I wanted to see what they thought about their artistic achievement. The great Serse Luigetti, in Perugia Italy, won first place in the “foreign artist” category. We’re obviously bitter enemies now! Mr. Luigetti sent me a few links. The show was held at Tyumen State University in Western Siberia. Other than naming the sponsor of the show, he knew about as much about it as I did.

Serse pointed me in the direction of Ilya Semenenko-Basin, a Russian mail-artist based in Moscow. Ilya is someone I’ve sent mail to over the past couple of years, even though most of it has been returned to me. I don’t know why. It wasn’t Ilya’s show but he was able to navigate the Russian for me. He sent me a lot of helpful information. The line I focused on the most is the following, “Dear Jon, this is a diploma of participation in the exhibition.” If you’re looking at the aforementioned sentence, their might be one word that stands out to you, it sure stood out to me, “participation.” It seems that my “Russian award” was just a Russian certificate of “participation.”