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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Identification and Creation

Object Number
64.2004
People
Ken Friedman, American (New London, Connecticut, USA born 1949)
Title
The distance from this page to your eye is my sculpture in 1972
Classification
Prints
Work Type
print
Date
1972
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/77803

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Rubber stamp on a postcard
Dimensions
8.3 x 14.1 cm (3 1/4 x 5 9/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: Ken Friedman [stamp]
  • legend: yes, ink, rubber stamped, signed: The distance from this page to your eye is my sculpture in 1972 -- Ken Friedman ["design," "subject," and "signature"]
  • inscription: black ink, hand written, in artist's hand: [name and address of person to whom the artist sent the postcard:] Jan van der Marck / School of Art / University of Washington / Seattle / Washington 98195
  • stamp: black ink, machine stamp: [in circle] RIFLE, CO 81650 / JUL 12 / PM / 1972 [postal cancelation mark]

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Anonymous Loan in honor of Mazie Harris
Copyright
© Ken Friedman
Object Number
64.2004
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
Friedman is the author or editor of several important source books and histories of Fluxus, with his own role as leader of Fluxus-West (California Fluxus) taking a prominent part in these. And this particular postcard has been cited as the epitome of Fluxus by Craig Saper in his essay "Fluxus as a Laboratory" ('The Fluxus Reader,' Ken Friedman, ed., p. 136), following this description of the characteristic Fluxus work of art: "Fluxus often parodied the kind of art that posits a masterpiece appreciated by a spectator. By contrast, Fluxus works highlighted social-poetic interaction and encouraged epistemological experimentation among participant-users." The movement's latter-day propensity for very long words should not overwhelm the brief, Zen-like formulation of the postcard, again, entirely characteristic of Fluxus and mail art, especially as practiced in the slightly later, West-Coast mode, as here. It is interesting to note that in an interview with Friedman conducted some time in the 1970s, the artist prophesized the internet, at least as his desire, as a qualitative leap beyond mail art. The interviewer, George M. Gugelberger, had said, "A large part of your achievement is correspondence. You seem to consider yourself as a large correspondence center." Friedman replied, "Yes. Truly I am waiting for an information system that would make it possible for us to enter into a telephone booth and be put in contact with everything essential." ("Doing My Doingness: An interview with the Fluxus-West Director Ken Friedman," pp.6-7).

Verification Level

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