Géza Perneczky - Ruud Janssen

Speed Print, a small instant print shop in San Francisco where it became apparent to
me that anyone could be a publisher. In 1973, letters by Robert Cumming and
Hudson of Ant Farm voiced FILE's viewpoint; that mail-art is a plague on art and
ought to be wiped out immediately. As an ardent „mail-arter“, I disagreed, and so
began work on the first issue of VILE which appeared in February '74 as a new
forum for mail-art... For VILE, I visualized a magazine that would look like LIFE,
but on close examination, would reveral its true nature; subtle put-down of the mass
culture with nasty, dada, „up-yours“ type messages. However, it didn't take any
close examination of the first couple of issues to see they looked nothing like LIFE
beyond their covers. The material I received in response to my first invitation did
not lend itself to presentation in the imagined format. It was all full-page artwork;
collages, drawings and writings. Rather than delaying the first issue to ask for
other, I published the material received, presenting it in a wrap-around cover over
the vello bound pages...» (Anna Banana: About VILE. S. P. Vancouver, 1983, 2 p.
Reprint: Vile History. In: Chuck → Welch (ed.): Eternal Network. A Mail Art
Anthology. University of Calgary Press, 1995. 47-53 p.)
(About «About VILE», 1983-84):
«This 8th edition of VILE is its swan song – Anna is cutting back on her mail art
and her responibilities as editor. However, if you don't know how important VILE
has been to mail art, About VILE is a good place to start. Anna recounts the magazine's
history and reproduces a good number of letters, mail art and images by
others. A substantial portion of the issue deals with her Banana Olympics, her
travels to Europe and her performance work (on which she continues to work).
VILE is a send-up of General Idea's FILE and both are parodies of LIFE. VILE
(as the early issues of FILE) provided a kind of mirror for the greater network of
mail artists, documenting exchanges and amplifying various issues. Always there
was at the fore a wiggy, high-spirited irreverence. VILE was not vile in any sense
other than the way some blunosed art patron might approach it. It was wacky mail
art fun and a sense of community from the 70s. It remains a considerable legacy.»
(Lightworks [→ Burch]. These Things Too [Print review]. N° 16, Winter 1983-84.
54 p.)
Anna Banana: Mail Art Canada. In: : M. Crane / M. Stofflet (eds.) Correspondence
Art. Contemporary Art. San Francisco, 1984. 233-264 p.
Anna Banana: Mail Art: Canada & Western U. S. A. In: Flue (→ Franklin Furnace),
Vol. 4 #3-4 (Winter 1984) «Mail Art Then and Now» issue, 25-28 p.
Géza Perneczky: The Magazine Network. The trends of alternative art in the light
of their periodicals 1968-1988. Edition Soft Geometry. Köln, 1993. 63-65 p.
«...One of my friends in Vancouver who was then a member of the Image Bank
collective, responded with a copy of the Image Bank Request List. This little 2-page
flyer brought the first information I had that there was, in fact, a network. It was a
list of names and addresses of artists, and the sorts of images they wanted to receive;
lips, clouds, 50s cars, that sort of thing. I went through my stack of old clip magazines
and put together an envelope for each of the perhaps 20 artists listed, and
mailed them out, with a copy of the Banana Rag, and a note stating that I was interested
in receiving ANYTHING to do with bananas; images, news stories, jokes,
music, whatever, as long as it had a reference to bananas. Within 2 or 3 weeks, my
mail-box came alive, and here I had the sort of enthusiasm and response I was
missing elsewhere in my life. Amongst the bananas, there were samples of the
others' work, invitations to projects, etc., and before I knew it, I was HOOKED.
In the course of the next year and a half, I responded to all the mail I
received, participated in all projects I heard about, and expanded the number of
artists I was exchanging with to perhaps 100. When I left Sooke (a town on Van-