| Guy Bleus | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Guy Bleus |
| Born | October 23, 1950 Hasselt, Belgium |
| Website | http://www.mailart.be/ |
Guy Bleus (born October 23, 1950 in Hasselt, Belgium) is an artist associated with the mail art movement and performance art.
His work covers different areas, including administration (which he calls Artministration), postal and olfactory communication.[1]
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In 1978 he founded the The Administration Centre – 42.292 which became a huge art archive with works and information of 6000 artists from more than 60 countries. “Guy Bleus has one of the finest archives of mail art in Europe, if not the world.”[2]
Bleus was the first artist who systematically used scents in plastic arts. Since 1979 he showed smell paintings, mailed perfumed objects and made aromatic installations; he also created spray performances where he sprayed a mist of fragrance over the audience.[3]
Exploring the possibilities of communication media as art media, he investigated the postal system in Indirect correspondence (1979) and searched for an alternative postal system in Airmail by balloons. Together with Charles François he was a pioneer using a computer connected to a modem for artistic communication (in 1989). He also applied reproduction media such as Microfilm, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM for artistic reasons.
Impressive are the numerous international art projects Bleus has organised, such as Are you experienced? L.H.F.S. (1981), W.A.A.: Mail eARTh Atlas (1981-83), Telegraphy (1983), Cavellini Festival 1984[4], Art is Books (1991), Fax Performances (1992), Private Art Detective: Sealed Confessions, and Building Plans & Schemes (1993).[5]
He wrote many texts on the subject of networking art. About his essay Exploring Mail Art (1984) Géza Perneckzy wrote: “The study of Guy Bleus outranks all other publications with its theoretical weight and conciseness.”[6] Moreover, he contributed to significant publications, such as Piotr Rypson’s Mail Art, Chuck Welch's Eternal Network, A Mail Art Anthology, or Vittore Baroni’s Postcards – Cartoline d’artista. He participated to a lot of artists' magazines.[7]
From 1994 till 1999 he opened the art gallery E-Mail-Art Archives. In this non-profit space more than 40 events of mail art, fax art and Internet art took place. In 1995 he edited The Artistamp Collection, the first mail art catalogue on CD-ROM. With the participation of networking artists such as Vittore Baroni, Ken Friedman, John Held Jr., Ruud Janssen, György Galántai, Pawel Petasz and Géza Perneczky, he published in 1997 the first E-Mail-Art & Internet-Art Manifesto, an issue of his electronic zine.[8]
After a bureaucratic venture of 20 years he realised in 2003 (together with Jean Spiroux) the very first postage stamp on the theme mail art edited by an official Postal Service. It was an edition of 4 million copies realised by the Belgian Postal Service.[9]
In 2005-2006 Bleus organised the olfactory mail art project Scents, Locks & Kisses with 778 artists from 43 countries in the arts centre Z 33.[10]. The website is a slideshow with all the works of the participating artists.[11]
A retrospective of his work was held in the Cultural Centre of Hasselt in 2010. The publication Pêle-Mêle: Guy Bleus® – 42.292 had bracts perfumed with lavender essence and included a re-edition of his ID from planet Mars of 1979.[12]