[New-Poetry] sent by (letters)

[Bob Grumman]

> But that's the problem-- just because the exhibits you see have work
> from private collections doesn't mean any significant part of the work
> held in private collections are being exhibited.

Oh, I don't know.  I'm big on painting, and the art reproduction books have 
huge amounts of work by painters, and most collectors are pretty free about 
lending it out.  In visual poetry, the American collectors with the best 
items, Ruth and Marvin Sackner, lend parts of it out all the time, let 
scholars in to look at anything they want, some of it fairly "valuable," 
though not up with "real" Painting.  And a person off the street with any 
kind of interest in anything related to visual art would be welcomed in for 
a tour.

The real funny part of all this for me is that probably the best collections 
of visual art are owned by people like me, with very little money--because 
we're unknown artists ourselves and exchange our work with other unknown 
artists, and get gifts, etc., and really have some of the best stuff 
around--because no one else is interested in the best stuff!  Or so we 
think.  But one thing is sure, we get as much pleasure out of our 
collections as the billionaires get out of theirs.  More, I'm certain, 
because have a deeper understanding of the pieces we have than they have of 
theirs.

--Bob


> I'm not jousting with the windmills of making all art free, I just
> find news about art changing hands from one private owner to another
> to be a strange kind of news for the rest of us. With letters, a form
> of writing I believe greatly underrated as art and a kind of
> historical artifact that is already being killed off by technology, it
> is even stranger.
>
> c
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