John Held, Jr. (mailartist)
| John Held Jr. | |
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John Held Jr.
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| Other names | Jon Held |
John Held Jr. (born 1947 in New York, USA), is an American mailartist, author and performance artist who has been an active participant in alternative art since 1975, particularly in the fields of rubber stamp art, zine culture, and artistamps. He is one of the most prominent and respected promoters and chroniclers of mail art.
Vittore Baroni has written of him, "He has been called the James Boswell of mail art and indeed, like the renowned collaborator of writer Samuel Johnson, John Held Jr is the best biographer (and bibliographer) that postal art has ever known or might ever have desired."
Held has 'done mail art' and maintained a worldwide circle of contacts since 1976. He has contributed to innumerable projects and shows spanning more than three decades. His mail artwork utilizes rubber stamps, artistamps, collage and copy art techniques, and he is also a noted performance artist. He has traveled extensively to realize individual and collaborative art actions, and his many performance pieces include Shadow Project at Hiroshima and Kyoto, Japan (1986), and Rrose Mutt at the Time of Change Festival in Minden, Germany (2000).
He is based in San Francisco, USA, where he directs the Modern Realism Gallery and Archive. He has curated mail art shows and solo exhibitions throughout the world, most notably Stampworks, the first exhibition at the Stempelplaats Gallery, Amsterdam (1976), Artistamps in Tartu, Soviet Union (1989), Mail Art at the Palace of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba (1995), Bay Area Dada at Printed Matter in New York City (1999), Peace Island at Jeju Island, South Korea (2001), American Artistamps at the Stendhal Gallery, New York City (2010) American Artistamps, and BMC to DIY, a Celebration of Black Mountain College Artists at Asheville, North Carolina, USA (2010).
He was curator at the Stamp Art Gallery in San Francisco from 1995–1998, and produced numerous catalogs and multiples relating to the twentieth century avant-garde in collaboration with director Picasso Gaglione. These years at the Stamp Art Gallery were the subject of the Stendhal Gallery, New York City exhibition, Greetings from Daddaland: Fluxus, Mail Art and Rubber Stamps (2010), curated for Evergold Gallery, San Francisco (2010) "Debris from the Cultural Underground". This show featured memorabilia from the Mailart movement, The Bay Area Dadaists as well as Held's own artwork Curated for Evergold Gallery, San Francisco (2011) "Beat by the Bay" an historical look at San Francisco's 1950's Beat artists and their galleries. He additionally co-curated a mail art exhibition with Andrew McClintock "Gutai Historical Survey and Contemporary Response" at The San Francisco Art Institute's Walter McBean Main Gallery (2013).
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