Stamps 1971-83

Cremlingen/Weddel: Designbuch Verlag, Bernd Löbach, publisher, 1983.

Title associated with the series: "Schriftenreihe der Galerie für Visuelle Erlebnisse Cremlingen," Volume 6.

92 unnumbered pages, softcover, perfect binding, 210 x 140 mm; photocopy printing on one side only, black and white.

Edition of 150 copies, featuring three original stamp imprints in red, brown, and green ink, signed by the artist in pencil.

Page 3 serves as the colophon page. It states:

"Dieser Band erscheint in einer Auflage von 150 signierten Exemplaren mit drei Original-Stempelabdrücken"
("This volume is published in an edition of 150 signed copies with three original stamp imprints.")

Translation of Bernd Löbach's text, published at the beginning of the book, about Endre Tót’s stamps and postage stamps:

About Endre Tót’s Stamps and Postage Stamps

Today, stamps and postage stamps have become essential in Mail Art (art as communication via postal exchange). Many artists now use stamps to print messages in the form of images and/or text on their mail. These messages are easily reproducible with stamps.

Throughout history, there have always been artists who have used stamps in their artwork or correspondence. What was new in the early 1970s was that artists began using the stamp as an exclusive and significant means of communication. Endre Tót, born in Hungary in 0000, where he lived until 1978, was one of these artists. He lived in Berlin from 1978 to 1979 and in Cologne since 1980.

Endre Tót was certainly the first artist from Eastern Europe to make stamps his primary means of expression. Due to the political situation in Hungary, the production and use of stamps posed significant challenges for him.

All planned printed materials had to be submitted for approval, and there was strict censorship. Even for something as simple as requesting an address stamp, applicants often had to wait a very long time for approval. Other types of stamps were impossible to obtain.

A friend of Endre’s, a printer, secretly smuggled lead type out of a printing house, similar to the kind used for setting newspaper headlines. This is how, in 1971, he was able to create his first stamp illegally. This now-famous stamp read:

"I AM GLAD IF I CAN STAMP."*

This text encapsulates the challenges of acquiring and using production tools as a private individual in a socialist country, while also expressing the simple joy of being able to manage something autonomously.

All the stamps created by Endre Tót in Budapest were made using lead letters for relief printing processes. The drawback of these stamps was that they produced only moderately clear impressions.

Between 1971 and 1978, Endre Tót lived in isolation. The only means of communication with artists abroad was via postal mail. Tót feels he owes a great deal to the Budapest postal system.

During this period, he sent several thousand letters and postcards, almost all of them bearing stamp imprints. He no longer knows what happened to these mail pieces. Mail Art is about ephemeral moments and surprises, and they are not always preserved over time.

Many recipients may have collected Tót’s mailings, but most of these postal works have likely become part of our disposable culture.

When Endre Tót left Hungary, he abandoned almost all of the stamps he had created there.

Mail Art and Stamping Performances

At the 1971 Paris Biennale, Endre Tót presented his "Zero" work in the Mail Art section ("Envois"). This exhibition was a key moment in the history of Mail Art.

Tót organized his first stamping performance in 1972 at Galeria Foksal in Warsaw, under the title:
"I'm glad if I can stamp in Warsaw too."

Similar stamping actions took place in:

• 1973 at Blackburn Museum in England, during the FLUXshoe international event,

• 1980 at Stempelplaats in Amsterdam.

During these performances, Tót stamped on blank sheets of paper for hours and then discarded the stamped sheets onto the floor.

By the end of the performance, hundreds of stamped sheets lay scattered around his table, all bearing the same phrase:

"I'm glad if I can stamp."

Tót explained:
"My bureaucratic stamping ironizes the uselessness of administrative activity—not directly, of course—but you know what I mean?"

Stamps and Artist’s Stamps

Tót's "professional" stamps began appearing in the West, primarily from 1978 onward, but his relationship with these later stamps was different.

Something from his early 1970s Budapest experience—shaped by the political conditions of the time—was lost. This kind of artistic practice is not easily transferable or replicable in different life contexts.

In 1974, Tót's "Zeropost" stamps were published by Edition Howeg in Hinwil, Switzerland:

• First edition:100 sheets of 49 stamps in black.

• Second edition (1976):Printed in green.

The official postal service "recognized" Endre Tót’s Zeropost in a unique way:

• In 1974, an envelope sent from Kraków bearing only a Zeropost stamp was postmarked and delivered without the recipient having to pay any additional postage.

Tót's Zeropost stamps were also featured at the first international exhibition of artist’s stamps, "Artist’s Stamps and Stamp Images", held at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, in 1974—an exhibition now remembered as historic.

The Meaning of Zeros and Stamps in Tót’s Work

*"Zeropost" belongs to Endre Tót’s "Zero Texts" and should be understood as a reference to obstructed communication.

Zero is a symbol of the era Tót lived through.

In this volume, all the stamps and postage stamps created by Endre Tót are presented on a white background—his repertoire.

This includes:

• Stamps he created in collaboration with other artists.

• Stamps dedicated to him by other artists.

• Stamps and postage stamps used in concrete contexts, as Tót had originally intended them.

Stamps and postage stamps were the tools Endre Tót used to convey his everyday statements.

His messages were transmitted through:

• Letters

• Envelopes

• Documents

• Drawings

• Collages

• Postcards

Thematic Aspects of Endre Tót’s Work

Tót’s work revolves around several main themes:

• Gladness/Joy

• Zeros/Nothingness

• Rain

• Loneliness

He expresses his small, everyday joys through simple statements, such as:

• "I am glad if I can stamp."

• "I am always glad when I can spray cologne on myself."

• "I am always glad on days when nothing happens to me—except waking up in the morning and going to bed at night."

• "Documents make me glad."

• "Documents make me calm."

These phrases may seem silly in isolation, but take on deeper meaning within their specific contexts.

For example:

• A marriage certificate is stamped with "Documents make me glad", reflecting how nostalgic contexts often become more significant than the actual event.

• A bank statement showing a balance of 0.00 DM is stamped with "Zeros make me calm", expressing his financial situation and uncertainty about the future.

Tót also documents his loneliness with various stamps:

• "Endre & Tót, we are so lonely."

• "Matterhorn & me, we are so lonely."

• "Empire State Building & me, we are so lonely."

These statements on solitude are not only personal, but also a wider social commentary.

One way to counteract loneliness in a big city is through artistic exchange by mail.

This is the meaning behind the stamp:
"I write you because you are there and I am here."

There is still much to discover in Tót’s simple phrases about our shared social experience.

I would like to conclude this short essay with a very personal remark, related to Tót:

"I am very glad when I see a stamp by Endre Tót."

*However, Endre Tót actually had this stamp made in Switzerland, through his friend, the Swiss writer of Hungarian and Slovenian origin, Ilma Rakuza.