THE AGENT No.3, April 1980
REVIEWS

"1946-1976-In the Jungle of Art" by G A Cavellini.
Published by the author and supplied free on request.

Georgette Munday: The NA [New Agency] didn't request this book but it's not hard to guess exactly why it was sent by this self-aggrandizing auto-historian whom the world of 'mail-art' so fawningly admires. Who is Cavellini? Hol [Jim Hol] pointed out to me that he bears a passing resemblance to the late comic actor Sid James, though I really think that's quite irrelevant and rather insulting to James, who ever he is. Who are all these people?
Having read this book, a memoir of sorts, pseudoexpensively produced (you know sort of third-rate lavish, the sole interesting feature of which is that it is written without punctuation of any sort (making the author sound very much like the breathlessly gabbling bore he probably is), I am in a position to put you in the picture (-which reminds me: despite being concerned exclusively with art the book contains but two illustrations; one frontispiece of the unsmiling author in thirteen different poses wearing the coat on which he once wrote his lifestory; and one other at the back of which more later):
Cavellini is an art collector and dealer. He also styles himlself as an ARTIST (concerning this word please see the review by JZ that opens this section) whose "central theme" is his self historicization (yes it's the old fame-as-art routine; he's arranged a few exhibitions, and published a few books, to that effect, publicising his achievements mostly via the "mail-art network" (see The Agent No.1 p.25). Over the years' this no doubt quite charming and harmless but nevertheless banal oaf has put to the test the unfascinating hypothesis that anyone can gain recognition as an artist just by announcing them self as such – especially anyone as well-funded as GAC, as he is known to his friends (of which he hashundreds).
He finances his autostoricizzazione by dealing in paintings (having originally set himself up as an artist with an income from "the family business" but realising quite early on that he wasn't as good at making paintings as he was at buying them) and this is an ironical factor in his work which, apparently, he finds amusing. To dislike Cavellini is of course to 'not see the joke' he thinks he's making at the expense of bourgeois Euro-American art; but he is in fact - as his memoirs reveal - so thoroughly bourgeois himself, so much in awe of art, and so unctuous in his dealings with artists* that the joke rapidly backfires. It is a facile game that demonstrates nothing but the feeble-mindedness of its participants, so there. Whatever humour there is in Cavellini's pseudo-subversion is smothered by the excess of respect and admiration he has for the society at which he is very politely 'poking fun'.
Mail-artists throughout the world - I mean, throughout the western world - have sent what they call 'homages' to Cavellini. These, judging from his book Nemo propheta in patria in which they are reproduced, are just a matter of sticking a GAC sticker on something 'crazy' like your forehead, tit, or kitchen wall, photographing it and sending it back to him. No thought involved, no critical comment. (I've read in the Canadian paper The NEO (to be reviewed) that last October the 'Gruppo Alternativo' in Castel San Giorgio did a performance called "Distruzione di G A Cavellini" but I don't know if it was just part of the anti-Cavellini-as-pro-Cavellini-as-art trend that's emerging; if you're reading this, Rosamilla and Pedicini, it would be interesting to know your views! Here at the NA we're taking this business 29% seriously.) As mail-artists are nearly all second-rate photobooth narcissists, zonked-out minimalists, infantile subpornographers, or wet teachers in art colleges, it's not surprising that they should rush with such witless, rapture to give Cavellini all the sycophantic attention he wants - which is not exactly what I have just done by publicising here the activities of this stupid little man.

*The last page of the book shows a photograph of Cavellini with the world-famous ARTIST Andy Warhol - pretty impressive eh? ... At first glance you don't notice that Warhol is actually shrinking away from Cavellini, who is tickling Warhol's elbow - an oily restaurateur ingratiating himself with a valuable client.