1986 Mail Art/brain Cell Sheet N°11 & Its Complete List Of Participant Artists

CONTEMPORARY ART, GRAPHIC ART
Curiosity

Original BRAIN CELL / MAIL ART sheet n°11 of January 1986, justified/numbered n°81/111 and signed with graphite pencil in capital letters RYUSOKE COHEN. To the sheet is joined its complete list of artists from all over the world who participated in this work, and their Country of origin. It includes specially the J.E.S. ARCHIVES for Jessie EDWARDS.

This work comes directly from his private collection, like many other BRAIN CELL sheet (please require the full list of available works if you re interested).
Living in San Francisco USA, then Ibiza in Spain, former archivist and contemporary art customer, he was indeed himself one of the founding artists who participated in this contemporary artistic movement. It should also be noted that his profession certainly dictated the perfect conservation procedure, since each time the lists of participants, accompanying notes and letters between artists, and sometimes envelopes, archived together and perfectly preserved.

Our plate has been framed here "between 2 glasses" (with a net of craft paper all around) with on the back the corresponding list of artists (56) including on its back the small instructions for sending R COHEN- the latter is therefore invisible, placed between the 2 sheets
These artists here are mainly American, but also Greek, Canadian, Polish, Spanish, Hungarian, Czech, Colombian, East German, Bulgarian, Belgian, Dutch, Danish, West German (!), Sweden, Yugoslav, Japanese and even... A Frenchman!! It just goes to show that our culture has not always been as resistant as that to all the avant-garde and new !!!

Dimensions:
Sheet 42 * 30cm
and 2-glass space frame 46,3 * 34,2 cm

This way of communication is also an artistic correspondence that uses Post services: it is the art of sending decorated letters. The letter and the envelope thus become a medium of artistic expression, and therefore a real creation, a work, mixing text and image.

A Japanese artist, RYUSOKE COHEN (Kouen, JAPAN 1948- ) created in 1985 BRAIN CELL. Work of art is no longer individual but becomes collective, the result of free exchanges of artists among themselves collaborating in the same adventure in all parts of the world. This expression support allows participating artists to express themselves on a variety of current topics: social, political, historical, artistic, environmental,... with the most total freedom. It's not here a question of a long drawing or a and sophisticated intervention but rather of a spontaneous and rapid contribution, the work finding its meaning rather in its collective, free and universal aspect - exchange between different countries and cultures.

BRAIN CELL REPULSION was created by Ryosuke Cohen in June 1985 during an international exhibition in Osaka, which resulted in the printing of the 1st series of works by BRAIN CELL (like a version 0.0 !)
One rare sheet of this first series of sheets in the history of this new artistic movement will soon be put on sale on my Proantic page !

This networked art project allows individual artists to contribute through stamps, stickers, drawings or other images. These elements are mailed to Cohen, who assembles and prints them for each cell. He printed in principle 150 copies - the 1st plates sometimes are numbered differently, in 30 x 42 cm sizes, thanks to a small screen printing system called CYCLOSTYLE (now out of production).

Each participant receives a Brain Cell draw by mail along with a list of contributors from around the world. Cohen kept a copy. Some of the remaining reproductions of each edition are assembled into albums in series of 30 consecutive copies. These series are sent to artists and Mail Art exhibitions around the world.
Cohen will also use Brain Cell's prints in Fractal Portrait Project (another long-standing art series by Cohen) and as additions to the Raspberry Pages

Cohen described the origin of the project's name in 1985: "I will call my work BRAIN CELL," because the structure of a brain under a microscope resembles the diagram of the Mail Art network. Thousands of neurons clumped together and stacked look exactly like the Mail Art network, I think".

"Brain Cell" is an artistic experience in the tradition of networked mail art, where a network develops from A, is copied, transmitted and even sent back to its author. This produces a series of cybernetic cells, capable of interacting in a non-linear order. Between 1985 and 2002, Brain Cell mobilized more than 6,000 contributors from 80 countries.New editions of Brain Cell are published every 8 to 10 days.
More than 1,200 different impressions of Brain Cell have been created (Brain Cell No. 1232 was released recently in January 2025). The numbering, in a purely chronological order, allows for a precise dating.

Ryosuke COHEN attached the following English notice to his recipients:
"Dear friend, this is an original pleasure of the Postal Art network where we use another person's postmarks or stamps at will. We can be linked to one of the brain cells, with no limit to the number, and we started from a superb creation. At the present time, for art, the faculty of a single genius is no longer a necessity. I intend to collect everyone's stamps or stamps on one sheet and send them back to each one.
Please send me your stamp or seal
Best wishes and greetings
Ryusoke COHEN
To be sent to R. COHEN
I-6 HIYOSCHICHO, MORIGUCHI,
OSAKA 570 JAPAN"

Provenance:
Private collection of Mr Jesse EDWARDS;
Our copy here is the Mail Art plate n°11, one of the first ones of this artistic movement.

Bibliography:
*http://1000flights.blogspot.com/2014/08/brain-cell-n216n218n222n226n239n398-by.html
*https://www.utsanga.it/cohen-brain-cell/
*http://www.ryosukecohen.com/
*https://artishere.fr/blog/christophe-masse-propose-fugace6-ryosuke-cohen/ https://artpool.hu/MailArt/chrono/1998/BrainCell4.html

MAIL ART or POSTAL ART is an old artistic movement, dating back to 19th century
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_postal