Lloyd (Ginny) papers and mail art collection, 1961-1999, undated

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Summary

Title:

Ginny Lloyd papers and mail art collection

Dates:

1961-1999, undated

Creators:

Lloyd, Ginny, 1945-

Abstract:

The Ginny Lloyd papers and mail art collection primarily consists of artist files, Lloyd's own multiples and publication projects, exhibition announcements, and mail art submissions and logistical materials related to the Inter-Dada Festival (San Francisco, Calif.) that Lloyd co-organized with Terrence McMahon in 1984. These materials reflect the creative artworks and international social networks that Ginny Lloyd developed in the experimental fields of mail art and copy art, with Dadaist aspirations, from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Extent:

67.58 Linear Feet (78 boxes, 1 boxed-roll)

Language:

Collection material is in English, with some Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Preferred citation:

Ginny Lloyd papers and mail art collection, 1961-1999, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2015.M.34.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/archives2015m34

Background

Scope and content:

The Ginny Lloyd papers and mail art collection documents the artist's various projects in copy art and mail art from the 1970s to 1980s, and reveals the international network of artists engaged in those experimental fields with whom Lloyd corresponded and collaborated. The collection primarily consists of artist files, Lloyd's own multiples and publication projects, exhibition announcements, mail art, and materials related to the Inter-Dada 84 festival in San Francisco that Lloyd co-organized with Terrence McMahon in 1984.

In Series I, the correspondence, copy art, mail art, and promotional materials for exhibitions reflect both the social and artistic relationships she developed with artists around the world, particularly from the San Francisco Bay Area and the United States. Additionally, the artist portraits and artist questionnaires in Series II, which form the book Lloyd's Blitzkunst: 54 artists of our era portrayed and questioned (1983), illustrate the artistic practices of some of those artists, including herself, Anna Banana, Ulises Carrión, and Guglielmo Cavellini. Series III includes ephemera for various exhibitions at galleries, museums, artists' spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Series IV contains her collection of artists' books, artists' periodicals, artists' zines, Xerox calendars, and other literary publications; and her own projects such as The Monthly: An Irregular Periodical, The Storefront: A Living Art Project, and The Yoga Correspondence. Of note are materials in Series V that documented the production and planning of, as well as participation in, the Inter-Dada 84 festival, a week-long celebration of art shows, performances, and events that were held across San Francisco.

Biographical / historical:

Ginny Lloyd was born Ginna Lotta in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1945. She studied at Syracuse University, where she graduated in 1975 with a bachelor of arts in psychology, and then received her masters in social work with a thesis on photography and social change in 1977. After learning about Fluxus during her studies, she became involved with mail art in 1977. She met Anna Banana and Bill Gaglione, who were Bay Area Dadaists and editors of the San Francisco-based magazine Vile. Lloyd collaborated with them on performances and publication projects. Lloyd expanded her network of mail art contacts through the many exhibitions and events that she organized or co-organized, including the Copy Art Exhibition (La Mamelle, 1980); Storefront: A Living Art Project (1982-1983), a temporary year-long art venue in South of Market, San Francisco, which held monthly mail art shows, exhibitions and performances by mail artists; and the Inter-Dada 1984 festival in San Francisco that she co-organized with Terrence McMahon.

In 1982, she participated in the Fashion Moda stores at Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany. In addition to working in mail art and copy art, Lloyd also worked actively with rubber stamps and published Gina Lotta Post in 1986. Her other projects include Space Project, which incorporates performances and events around the theme of art in space. She received support from NASA and the National Endowment of the Arts for this project. Lloyd has produced several art billboards and artists' books which often utilize mail art imagery and themes. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Everson Museum, Syracuse (1976); Long Beach Museum of Art (1983); Budapest Museum of Fine Arts (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2012); and the San Francisco Art Institute (2014).

Source consulted: Tain, John. "Acquisition Approval Form for 'Ginny Lloyd (American, 1945- ) Mail Art Archive, c. 1980s-1990s,'" accession no. 2015.M.34, January 26, 2015.

Acquisition information:

Purchased in 2015 from the Steven Leiber Irrevocable Trust.

Appraisal information:

Duplicate published materials were not retained with the collection.

Custodial history:

Materials in the archive were created by Ginny Lloyd and an international group of artists involved in mail art, copy art, and Neo-Dada. Lloyd sold her mail art archive at the end of 1999 to the art dealer and collector Steven J. Leiber. After Leiber's passing in 2012, the Ginny Lloyd mail art archive was in the possession of the Steven Leiber Irrevocable Trust until its transfer to the Getty Research Institute in 2015.

Processing information:

Jenny Le processed the collection from 2023 to 2024 and wrote the finding aid in 2024 under the supervision of Sarah Mackenzie Wade.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in five series: Series I. Artist files, 1976-1995, undated; Series II. Ginny Lloyd's Blitzkunst: 54 artists of our era portrayed and questioned (1983), 1981-1982, undated; Series III. Ephemera, 1968-1989, undated; Series IV. Published materials, 1963-1999, undated; Series V. Inter-Dada 84, 1977-1986, undated.

Physical location:

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Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:: Jenny Le
Date Encoded:: This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-02-05 08:12:15 -0800 .

Access and use

Restrictions:: Open for use by qualified researchers. Audiovisual materials are unavailable until reformatted.
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