1968-1972 ‘Mail Art’
BRIAN ENO & ANTHONY BENJAMIN: THE CREATIVE FUN IN WRITING LETTERS
During his early days in Calgary, Benjamin was involved in an intense but friendly correspondence with Brian Eno, who had been his student at Ipswich College of Art (where Roy Ascott’s Ealing Groundcourse decamped after being turned down for the new Dip AD - a Diploma in Art and Design, by the ultra-conservative Coldstream Committee who were totally bemused by the lack of student paintings hanging on the walls, or sculpture standing on plinths. )
Later when Benjamin took up a teaching position at Winchester College of Art, he helped Eno to get a place on the course. However, Eno was far ahead of the times and traditional attitudes of the Winchester staff. Later, when Benjamin left Britain in September1968 to go to Calgary in Canada, Eno felt isolated, as he had little intellectual connection with the extremely conventional art college staff. Many years later he accidentally discovered an internal college correspondence regarding; ‘the Eno problem’, which stated -“he obviously isn’t a painter and has no intention of becoming one” (Eno relayed this to Nancy in a letter 12.17.03)
Benjamin had always used the Royal Mail in an original and very personal way; he wrote lots of postcards and letters illustrated with funny sketches, decorated with special postage stamps, as well as rubber stamps if they came to hand (as above). He also had an ‘inventive’ approach to spelling and names. At that time in the pre-digital era, many artists used traditional hand written, or typed letters in envelopes, or postcards, to produce creative, playful, sometimes political, Mail Art, a predecessor of Social Media. (***********move previous para to above the previous illustration. ************* )
Benjamin’s sketches for some large imaginary installations on the Alberta Prairies and the Rocky Mountain foothills.
Going through the tranch of Eno’s letters makes it apparent he had moved on from the traditional attitudes to art that the Winchester staff diligently maintained. As well as witty critical comments and hilarious gossip about the conservative college, his letters are full of fantastical ideas, surrealist speculation, puns and propositions.
Possibly this inspired Benjamin to be equally imaginative to described his ideas about Conceptual Installations - a “Drive In Prizm”, “Red Neon Magic Circles in the Snow”, a “Moon Piece” (above left) and other reflective metal objects similar to his sculpture, that he was dreaming up for the wide open Alberta Prairies with the looming Rocky Mountains on the distance horizon.
On 19.9.68, in a single spaced, typed both sides, three page letter, Eno composed on “…this disgusting paper …the only kind i can lay my hands on that will fly easily and cheaply”. He also thanked “dear antennae” for an “unexpected letter” …”nice skies; implies rain but all the same/ it’s so empty and, in comparison i suppose, reachable. your skies sound a little big for brittle fingers, but after all what the flying doesn’t free the heart to rust over. ”
22/9/68 Eno wrote - “ last sunday (15th ) I had an ad for myself in the sunday times. It read- ‘SAGE, meditative, yet inventive at last available for cerebral employment and creative field -labour’ … now the labour exchange can’t accuse me anymore of being unwilling to work”. The page concludes with - “ i’m designing visiting cards for myself at the moment, but i haven’t finalised the wording. maybe - BRIAN ENO ESQ. anarchist/ masochist/philatelist… or - BRIAN ENO, ESQ. ephemeralist/field labourer, but i’m not really sure yet.”
11/10/68 back at the college, Eno wrote - “Dear Anthony, just a quick note to say that art school has resumed and is worse than ever, How we miss you!” On 3/4/ 69 he stated -“…the art school has proverbially flipped its wig.“ … but, by then he was racing into a wider world of conceptual creative practice leading into the use of innovative synthesiser sound with the emerging new pop group - Roxy Music, that he had become a part of.
An A4 size brown envelope posted 8.11.68 is bordered with 38, orange coloured,1 penny stamps, plus 2 in the usual position, 40 in all, forming a frame for the address. The three stamps at each corner have been cancelled with one postal worker’s ‘thump’, and the pairs in-between cancelled two at a time, so about twenty two thumps altogether, were made by the lucky worker at the Winchester Post office, who maybe did/or did not, realise that - he/she, was taking part in a clever, conceptual Postal Art Event, not just surviving another dreary day standing behind the Post Office Counter, cancelling forty, orange penny stamps, that would soon be flying over the wild waves of the Atlantic Ocean to chilly Calgary on the Alberta Prairie, in Canada.
Unfortunately, Benjamin’s letters to Eno have not survived, but they would have been equally ‘playful’…copiously illustrated and thoroughly ‘stamped,’ with lots of creative ideas, as well as ‘creative’ spelling (and a few genuine spelling errors). Nothing that either Eno, or Benjamin did, or made, was ‘ordinary,’ and most of Benjamin’s letters were extraordinary…examples of the almost Lost Art of Letter Writing.
Some of Eno’s letters were written with an incredibly tiny, but faultlessly perfect script that would have required good eyes and control to write with a very fine Rapidograph, and magnifying glass to read. The enlarged detail (below) from the script reads - “dear anthony” - the ascending stroke in the “e” says - “ I am working with a new group (Roxy Music) now, the article enclosed appeared in Melody Maker a couple of weeks ago…”. The tiny writing mentions “business efficiency”; something that Eno was better at than Benjamin, “and artistic playfulness”… an interest that both he and Benjamin shared. They were both talented at ‘playfulness’, regardless that most aspiring artists of that time preferred to be thought of as very Serious, never Playful ! ‘Pop Art’ had not fully popped out of the box, and was not taken seriously by the ‘Serious Artists’, like those on the staff at Winchester, who probably would have scoffed righteously at the ‘very idea!’.
On 14,10, 2007-Ben Thompson reviewing with piercing insight - ‘Re-make/Re-model’ by Michael Bracewell in … The Independent on Sunday - Art Students from Another Planet …
“ … halfway through Re-make/Remodel comes alive on page168. With the advent of Brian Eno…And a facinating and hilarious account of Winchester Art School’s despairing attempt to make a painter out of him provides an invaluable insight into the true nature of Eno’s genius, which is the ability ruthlessly to adjust the parameters of any creative endevour to reflect the nature of his own contribution, while somehow presenting himself as a selfless facilitator”
Michael Bracewell in The Independent on Sunday - Art Students from Another Planet