The Brainstorm Edition can certainly be counted among Minimal Art or Small Art. An assignment to recycled art would also be possible. Since all sheets were sent to well-known artist colleagues via Mail Art, this edition probably also belongs to the Mail Art area and is therefore mentioned here.
These inconspicuous 4 excerpts are closely interwoven with the people who lived or visited the CASAdelDRAGON between 1987 and 2023. And considering the origin of the recycled paper, it’s a story of the last 45 years of a contemporary artist and his correspondence.
The paper was recycled from many letters, newspaper clippings and other documents that were in paper form. It was scooped, dried and pressed in the dragon’s house. Some of these hand-made sheets contain clearly visible artefacts from Spanish and German newspapers. You will also receive remnants of works on paper that were made in the artist’s residence between 2018 and 2023 (and were not thrown away). As early as 2011, there was a debate in local artist circles about the influence the current environmental discussion should have on art production. Some had rejected this angrily, others were looking for the best possible use of the materials, also for economic reasons. And that also included the storage of leftover paper and paper waste from other artistic works.
Some of the then handmade leaves can be found in works by Maria Garcia (La belleza del perdon, The gesture of forgiveness). These have been distributed all over the world within the social art project ARTSURPRISE.
If the increase in entropy in the universe is accepted as correct, life can be defined as a force that counteracts entropy, but only locally. In the local process of life, energy is converted and thus more entropy is generated. So the price is high. From the point of view of anarchy, the choice of means and process in the creation of art is therefore a subjectively worthwhile one, even if there is a price to be paid for the environment. Who can now decide whether this collateral damage is justified in the end result? In this case, it was and is important to keep this damage to a minimum and to continue using all the material that accumulates. Efficiency is also a result of the school the artists of ARTSURPISE went through. The challenge of thinking in series also leads to such considerations.
When the leaves are scooped, the puple lying on the sieve is tapped onto a cloth. So normally the size of the sheet depends on the size of the screen. Big screens are expensive.
In order to realize larger sheets with a small screen (DIN A4), the screen was tapped several times so that the individual rectangles overlapped. This resulted in sheets of about DINA3.
In the drying process, the leaves connect well. When you have the sheets in front of you, you hardly see the transition, only when you hold the sheets up to the light do you see these connections.
Some of these sheets were prepared for a brainstorming session in the CASAdelDRAGON and used as a substitute for a whiteboard. In 2021, a few friends and acquaintances, all creative and involved in health issues, met in the house of the dragon to talk about the personal consequences of the current political situation. During the discussion, words were written on the leaves. These then served as a stimulus for further discussion.
Also present was a family who had left their home country because they had classified the conditions in the schools as inhumane and intolerable for their children. Their words of reflection also found their way onto these recycled sheets.
After the meeting, the leaves were photographed and emailed to those involved. Most of them were then packed into small packages and published as part of a series FLUX:US by ARTSURPRISE. The last ones available have been made into this edition.
They remind you of the storm in your brain that gripped everyone involved back then. And they invite you to think about your own storm and to keep it in mind. Future generations want to know what happened before their time. Art is a good tool to help us remember. It may be that this could trigger another storm in the brain, but art can please and does not have to be pleasing.
Cervera del Maestre, July 2023
