The Gerlovins

4739

Rimma and Valerii Gerlovin

Collective Farm

325 x 365 mm.

Envelop with three objects

Edition: unknown

Object 1:

Bloody mail

New York: International Art Centr, 1981

295 x 242 mm.

Folder with two sheets

Signed: Gerlovin a

Object 2

The Breadinsects

New York: The Cookie Press, 1981

450 x 230 mm (when folded)

Object 3:

Letter to Leif Eriksson, Sweden

215 x 100 mm.

In New York in 1981, together with Vagrich Bakhchanyan, we began to produce a handmade international journal called Collective Farm (one hundred copies per issue), consisting of envelopes bound into a book, each of which forms a kind of mini gallery for the contributing artist. The journal makes use of the monoprint method with the aid of Russian color carbon paper, Xerox copies, original drawings, prints and collages. The first issue ('Kolkhoz') prepared by an expanded editorial force, consisted solely of works by Russian artists; all subsequent issues -No 2, "Letters to the USSR", No.3, "Post Office Diner", and No. 4, "Wonderkids"- were international in character,. In the last issue, works by Miro, Picasso, Dubuffet, Twombley and others, who were influenced by children's art, appeared as elements in original drawings by children of contemporary artists. The idea of the design came to us when we found a huge container of envelopes across from our garage-loft on Spring Street. Now the journal figures in many artist-book collections including the Museum of Modern Art's as a rare edition.

Gerlovin, R. and V. in: Russian Samizdat Art, New York: Willis Locker & Owens, 1986, pp.151-153.