(1981) Volume 4, Number 1

              volume 4 number 1 january 1981 profile mohammed genova leaving milano on a warm sunny day to go to genova i felt a bit of excitement for i had an appointment with mohammed to spend the day and then return to milano in late afternoon i felt i was representing all the mail artists who have used this amazing network to communi cate with other artists all over the world luckily i speak italian which facilitated matters completely we never talked about what we would wear in fact what we looked like but we both assumed we would recognize each other the land scape schanged as i left milano for the closer to the sea we came the cloudier and more sfumato the environment appeared but the sunshine seemed to penetrate the cloud cover and i arrived a bit late since the train was quite late in milano ah well mussolini doesn't live there anymore at any rate i looked for him everywhere and felt that since the train which i had taken was another one than the one which i had indicated since that one was to have been 45 minutes late then perhaps i should wait in the central waiting room then i heard that my original train was arri ving so i went to the track and looked for him-and there was this swarthy exotic-looking italian man whom i had known at the artefiera in bologna in 1977 and^i intro duced myself sure enough there he was and we then proceeded to his home where his wife prepared a beautiful lunch for me , born of a turkish father and a genovese mother we find a rather striking man energetic vital and full of life what he has devised is a network a system whereby as he says mohammed goes to the mountain rather than vice-versa mohammed goes to you starting in 1976 he set up his centro di comunicazione ristretta center of restricted communication whereby an artist sends work to him with a list of 1 2 recipients mohammed centre then prints and sends copies to the 12 persons indicated all work must be done on paper measuring 21 x 23 cm or on a paper provided by the centre black and white or color are acceptable mohammed then keeps three copies for his archive the original one copy for the archive and one copy for jean brown although they have never met he respects jean brown highly for her work in setting up an outstanding archive in tyringham massachusetts and feels it his duty to share this with her by a short notice in flash art thanks to franco vaccari he started receiving work from dick higgins peter frank john held and klaus groh among others anna banana and robert kushner followed and so now he has gone far beyond 1,000 unita or what the communications are called in italian each unitv is completed in itself but some can be connected with others and so the net work continues according to mohammed the history of art is finished but art is not finished " from these communications one reaches the inner soul mohammed upon receipt of the communication logs it in in a special diary then he and his collaborators send the original to the xerox center in bologna which according to him is the best color xerox machine in all of italy then he logs in the work giving it a number all are numbered progressively and labels them according to the instructions of the original author whether the individual who is to receive the work is a known addressee red label or a hidden addressee green label the labels read known to the other elevent or hidden to the other eleven besides the item getting a number each correspon dent also has a number in his log after addressing all the envelopes and starring the name on the document he rubber stamps the known or hidden statement and also enhances the envelope with a little collaged piece of paper taken from magazines or whatever and sends t , enhances the envelope with a little collaged piece of paper taken from magazines or whatever and sends the pieces on their way he has also logged in the date of shipment of each piece around 50 a month arrive and right now he is quite behind for it is difficult to keep up with the mass of works that come through there is a spiritual content to this operation as moham med says unita means unit which to him means harmony issn 0160-0699