Neal Baer Collection

Brian Buczak (b. 1954 Detroit, d. 1987 New York) was a writer, artist and publisher active in New York and most closely linked to Fluxus activities along with his partner, artist Geoffrey Hendricks. This still life drawing of letters, parts of postcards or photographs perhaps from the letters, and a pile of feathered quills is typical of Buczak’s interest in portraying objects associated with correspondence, such as pencils, pens, and envelopes. This particular drawing also refers to Buczak’s artistic and romantic relationship with Hendricks: the pictured correspondence was between Buczak and Hendricks one year into their relationship when Hendricks was staying in Reggio Emilia with Rossana Chiesi, a longtime friend and collaborator. The drawing also evokes the global, intermedia network of mail art and a Fluxus conception of artwork as a site of interaction between the artist and an audience in the real world, outside of institutions. Buzcak was active in Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School since 1965, and Buzcak’s letters with Johnson were acquired as part of its acquisition of the Ray Johnson papers by Northwestern’s Archival and Manuscript Collections.

Provenance

Ortuzar Projects, New York

Other works by Brian Buczak

Untitled, 1977

See also

Brian Melamed, Brian Buczak Archive

Visual AIDS, “Brian Buczak”

Ethan Shoshan, “More Than a Jar of Pennies: In Loving Memory of Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian Buczak, 2018”

MoMA, “Fluxus”

Ray Johnson Estate, “The New York Correspondance [sic] School”

Nayland Blake, “Ray Johnson: Correspondences” at the Whitney Museum of Art, Artforum, March 1997

Ray Johnson, “Marianne Moore Frank Sinatra”, 1972-92